Hey all, Silent Voices has been on pause for a while, I may pick it up again later in 2016, but in the meantime, check out my new wildlife/nature photography blog at https://wildthingsphotography.wordpress.com/
Cheers!
Water’s ways
sculpted wood
polished bone
etched in stone
water whispers its way
springs source to sea
runoff to river
to water-
fall
falls
through rifts
soaks down
oceans answer
an ancient calling
water falling
with time, tide
water’s atoms
carve out continents
drop by
drop
water’s ways remain
the same
through states through time
water finds a way
*A glosa is a form that pays tribute to another poet. It borrows lines from his or her poem to end each stanza of the glosa’s four 10-line stanzas.
Rubbing its back upon the window panes ;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet ;
There will be time to murder and create.
-T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
In its heart it holds
stolen moments.
Streams of seconds
run through its veins,
muscles of minutes
wrapped around hollow bones.
It stretches, falling
like shadow over ancient stones
prowls carelessly, leaving smudges and stains,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes.
Quietly stalks
sheltered in silence,
a kind of muted violence
In darkness it steals minutes
tears seconds from life
like flesh from bone
in its greed takes hours,
even days months and years
Always invisible, Time
is appetite and crime.
There will be time, there will be time
Creates rifts
in lives, leaves
skeletal memories
fragile fragments
of remembrance
people staring at their feet,
misunderstanding and Time hanging
between them like a wall.
Time, insufficient, ever incomplete
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet ;
In a cruel twist of fate
it stands still
claws retracted,
curls up in a corner
suddenly sedate
leaving life
stuck on repeat
awaiting the end
so make your choices choose your fate
There will be time to murder and create.
For the love of place,
Topographies of faces,
And of sacred spaces
Tracing footsteps,
Traces of dust and sand
Across the land,
Tracing steps
Back to their roots
Roots anchored deep
In the entrails of the land
Entangled in the past
The present and the future
Landscapes,
Rugged coastlines
And curving spines
Of ancient mountains
Mapping out trails
Cross-country
Crossing rails
Railway-lines
From ancient times
The ebb and flow
Of time, of tides
Show
Memories of faces
But do even
Sacred places
Remain the same?
Nous avons débuté notre journée avec une tournée en bateau-mouche, sur la Seine. En sortant du métro près de la rive nous avons tout de suite aperçu la Tour Eiffel.
Du bateau, nous avons aperçu beaucoup de bâtiments et monuments, mais aussi une multitude de ponts.
Des ponts!
Nous nous sommes aussi promenés près des champs Elysees, visité la Cathédrale Notre-Dame, et nous avons emprunté des vélos (un service de la ville de Paris) afin de se rendre aux Tuileries. Personne ne porte des casques d’en Europe, ni en France, ni en Allemagne…
Promenade près de la Seine
Chemin pour vélos
Tuileries
Samuel de Champlain, parmi les premiers français à mettre pied sur le canada
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris- très beau!
Demain matin nous partons pour Poitiers et ensuite, LaRochelle!
Ship on the Rhein
Bikes everywhere
We landed yesterday morning at the airport in Frankfurt, dopey with jet lag and overwhelmed by the sheer amount off people. After taking a fast train to Colongne,reunited with our mother and happy to see our grandfather and his wife, we spent much of the day walking around so as not to fall asleep asleep.
We dodged so many cyclists and were amazed at the bike culture in Cologne- as a pedestrian, there is a real danger of getting run over!
Now we are in Paris, tired and excited for tomorrow.
Some images from an earlier hiking trip this summer…
River on the Moosehorn trail
Laverty Falls
Wolkenbruch, (german). A cloud breaking.
Downpour.
The River fuller than I remember it, waves rolling towards the shore and washing up against the rushes, on the doorstep of our old home.
Then, a break in the clouds and the sky takes on a pale blue with dark purple-blue clouds, like bruises, crowding the edges.
Kingfishers, -assumed descendants of a certain individual named Charlie-, chatter as they swoop into over the water and perch along the shore. The Charlies have lived along this river for as long as I can remember, and so has the heron. Long-legged, long-necked, he clears the treetops, his pterodactyl-like figure surprisingly graceful both on land and in the sky. Every summer they, the River, the oak trees, the old house, they’re all still there, just like before. Just older, bigger, smaller, wilder, more run-down.
In the morning, bare feet trampling thyme,
Time here always too short,
Tabusintac, Taboosimgeg, till we meet again.
Like beached whales
A Nova Scotian wilderness provincial park along the Bay of Fundy with jagged sea cliffs, coves and gullies and 40 beautiful kilometers of backcountry trails and remote campsites. Ideally one would take a few days and do the Cape Chignecto Coastal Trail, the whole loop around the park but time not permitting this time, my family and I did a weekend-version with two 6K hikes in (Mill Brook, Refugee Cove) and one 12K out (Refugee Cove to the visitor centre).
What a trail
The terrain at Cape Chignecto is rugged, with several steep climbs that seem to never end, with loose rocks and dirt, the trail switchbacking up to dizzying heights in endless zigzags. Backpacking heaven and hell all in one.
This was nothing compared to the rest…
Life on the trail is so much simpler, the placing of one foot in front of the other, shoulders straining against pack straps, boots slipping on roots and rocks and dirt, greenery on either side and air, fresh air.
Departure from Mill Brook sunday morning
Walking at the top of cliffs plunging into the ocean, the edge so close and the water at the bottom so blue, the rocks so sharp.
Lookout
Walking on the edge makes the breathtaking views all the more spectacular.
Forests of sugar maple leaning against the slope, hermit and swainson’s thrushes, encouraging us with their musical notes, glimpses of blue through the trees, the ocean always there and the cool breeze with a hint of salt to remind us.
Sugar maple forests
Mixed forests with the tiny but long-winded winter wren who has so much to say about who knows what. The black-throated green warbler who adds his own personal touch to his song, an excited flourish at the end that makes him recognizable amongst all the others of his kind.
There’s sweat and soreness and blisters but the trees offer support and the birds sing… Sometimes there is no flat ground to stand on for almost an hour and sometimes it becomes difficult to decide what is harder; up or down? Does this descent ever end? Is there anything at all at the bottom of this? But then, a waterfall or the stream, rushing over boulders, the bottom.
The beach at Mill Brook
Cliffs rising on either side of the cove, bronze veined with black, or slate grey, and rocks covered in shaggy seaweed and barnacles and periwinkles, dog whelks, isopods…
Arrival at Refugee Cove- the beach
Even after a day of hiking there’s always still time and energy to explore
Fog banks collecting on the horizon and disappearing again, ravens swooping into the valley close on the heels of an eagle…
Waves rumbling against the shoreline.
Life on the trail is always real, never fake.
Heading further into the valley to our campsite at Refugee Cove
The brook at Refugee Cove, not far from the campsites
Refugee Cove Beach on Monday morning
This was strange. We found a moth with a fungus growing out of it. (The moth was dead)
Last stretch of our 12K on Monday, down to the beach
Goofy tired hikers
A few summers ago I wrote a post about an old marsh barn, the very one I chose as the picture for my blog’s header. It’s been about two years, and the barn doesn’t look much different. It still leans, is missing both doors and looks really cool.
pigeons leaving the roof as we approached on our bikes
It’s one of my favorite places on the Tantramar Marshes and I’m not even really sure why.
Tantramar Marshes, the covered bridge
View right through
Inside! Up top there’s a nest, likely an owl.
just outside
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