FROM the WINDOW in WINTER

"A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things..."

                                             - George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones)

From the window in winter I saw the Cooper's Hawks. Hunting .

The sun set with the moon as its scabbard

From the window I saw the farthest part of the range, low and beyond low on the horizon.

Night set in and  the sun  swallowed the  clouds

And I saw the Hawk gobble it's prey.

"I recognized winter. I saw it coming. And I looked it in the eye.." -Katherine May

The mountains huge and looming in the distance.

And the hawk. Stuffing itself with feathered  things.

All day. Every day till the sun set.

And the Hawks kept coming in the dank soggy air. 

Beyond the mountains.

From the window the Hawks perch on the cherry tree. Waiting for their moment.

In the chill. In  late afternoon. 

Beyond the window. Beyond the range.

Light fades to mist and cloud.

From the window in winter, they will rise up.

"There is something strange in the silence of a winter view. Something seems to happen.But nothing happens as if reality is frozen...." 

                                             -Mehmet Murat Idan

Photographs 2021. Mt Washington range, Campbell River, B.C. Canada

                                                    Spencer in the window

WIND and SEA

A NIGHT PIECE by MILLET Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

Wind and sea and cloud  and cloud forsaking

Mirth of moonlight

Where the storm leaves free

Heaven awhile

for all the wrath of waking

Wind and sea.

Bright with glad mad rapture,

Fierce with glee,

Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud's overtaking

Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.

One blown sail beneath her,

hardly making forth

wild winged for harbourage yet to be

Strives and leaps

And pants beneath the breaking

Wind and sea..............

*My father loved the ocean. He served on the big CPR ships in the 30's and 40's. He loved the sea so much he  and my mother bought a little piece of property out at Sooke and planted a cabin there. It faced the open ocean, and the waves pounded against the deck in winter, and kissed the rocky shore in summer. the sun rose and set on that place. He used to call it "Wind and Sea".......(.more on that  in a later blog........)

Photographs 2021

 

ON BEAUTY

ON BEAUTY by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) From "The Prophet" published in 1923 (excerpts)

And a poet said: Speak to us of Beauty.  And he answered:

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shay of her own glory she walks among us.

And the passionate say: "Beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."

The tired and weary say: "Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow."

The restless say: "We have heard her shouting among the mountains, the beating of wings and the roaring of lions."

Watchmen of the city say: "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east."

The wayfarers say: "We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset."

The snow-bound say: "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills."

In summer  the reapers say: "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair."

Beauty is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see not the song you would hear.

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song  you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden forever in bloom, and a flock of angels forever in flight.

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.............

Photographs 2021