Photographs taken on 15 April 2024.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Return of the crows
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Somewhere on Mount Royal
It was the end of April 2011; I was walking on Mount Royal, the mountain at the center of Montreal and a very popular park. The spirit of trees is not only in the tree, it's in the shadow of the trees, it's in the roots and branches and the seasonal change of leaves, from green to fall's variety of colours to these bare branches and the carpet of leaves on the ground.
Thursday, April 21, 2022
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Snow in late April
Over 19 cm. of snow fell yesterday, a new record for snow falling on April 19; twenty-four hours later most of it has melted.
And now it's back to life and getting on with spring, turning the world green after a long, cold, white winter.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
The Garden in mid-April
The garden doesn't look like much in early spring but there are a few birds visiting the bird bath, a Cardinal sitting at the dining room window not knowing he was being observed, a few other birds happily eating whatever it is they find on the ground. It doesn't look like much but the snow has finally melted and I've unwrapped a few plants, an overgrown box hedge, three rose bushes, and they're all alive. I haven't removed mulch from the garden, we'll see soon enough what is under last years leaves. Irises and day lilies are coming up and there are buds on the lilac bush that I cut down to ground level years ago, it has survived my pruning and is now about seven feet tall, bravo for life!
Photos taken yesterday, 15 April 2022.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
"The Break-Up" by A.M. Klein
the thermometers. It is shouted red
from all the Aprils hanging on the walls.
In the dockyard stalls
the stevedores, their hooks rusty, wonder; the
wintering sailors in the taverns bet.
a fortnight sees the floes, the smokestacks red!
Outside The Anchor's glass, St. Lawrence lies
rigid and white and wise,
nor ripple and dip, but fathom-frozen flat.
There are no hammers will break that granite lid.
to wake the wagering city, it will break,
will crack, will melt its muscle-bound tides
and raise from their iced tomb
the pyramided fish, the unlockered ships,
and last year's blue and bloated suicides.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
"Lyrics of Air" by Louis Dudek
of soft scented ocean on my face --
no ripple against the skin
but open waves, parabolas from some April place
in the sky, like silk between the fingers
from old Cathay, blown about, or like gigantic roses
whose petals, waving, fall on my face
with a faultless petaline smoothness.
to pour over the crust of windy March.
Give me a mouthful of such air, digestible as water,
to rarify in the bones and flow
upward, until
from the bud of my cold lips poetic leaves may grow.