Posts Tagged ‘pencil drawing’
Pearly everlasting
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Pearly Everlasting
Anaphalis margaritacea L.
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Pearly Everlasting
sign of summer’s passing
yet – immortelle
picked by the road
by the armload
hung from rafters
children’s laughter
runs beneath
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downy leaf, woolly stem
white diadem
perfectly matched flowers
thatched in gold
dry and old
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Linnaeus named
for Marguarite
memory sweet
paper petals keep
pale perfume
summer grace
in a winter room
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Published as: ‘Pearly Everlasting’, The Antingonish Review 92, 1993 and at niche poetry and prose, August 20, 2012 here
Copyright Jane Tims 2012
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All my best,
Jane
in an orchard
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orchard
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between apples, twigs and leaves
stems and branches
are glimpses
of sky
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sapphire and cerulean
panes of leaded
transparent
glass
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molten in motions of wind
edges in
malleable
light
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fragile as blades of bent grass
stiffened by frozen
morning
dew
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Copyright 2019 Jane Tims
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All my best,
Jane
fetching water
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fetching water
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‘Strength in those arms,’
says Mama. ‘Fetch
me a bucket
of cold water
from the well.’
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‘Need one of those
pumps,’ says Papa.
‘Painted iron,
hornbeam handle.’
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‘No need,’ says Thomas.
‘I know how to drop
the bucket
so she fills
the first time.
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‘Echoes lift
from well-stones.
My face down there,
winks on the water.
Strength in these arms.’
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Copyright 2019 Jane Tims
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All my best,
Jane
hauling wood
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hauling wood
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The draft horse answers
to a click, a shake
of the reins, the squawk
of a blue jay, flushed
from the thicket. Long
tail hairs scatter flies.
Chain rings, loops around
the log, its cut end
a brake, ploughs up duff.
Nostrils flare and hooves
find gain in gather
of leaves, paw for ground.
Lather under tack,
he lowers his head.
Takes the woodlot incline
as though he’s navigated
these hardwoods
all of his life.
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Copyright 2019 Jane Tims
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All my best,
Jane
three yellows
On Sunday, we went for a drive along New Brunswick Route 615, eventually travelling from Mactaquac to Nackawic. A pleasant drive, climbing into the hills of this part of New Brunswick.
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Early into our drive, a theme suggested itself … the yellow flowers of spring. These included the daffodil and the blazing Forsythia (Forsythia sp.) … a deciduous shrub with copious yellow blooms.
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Another yellow flower crowding the edges of almost every ditch, was Tussilago farfara or Coltsfoot. The flowers have been in bloom a couple of weeks and will soon set their white fluffy seed. After the flowers have faded, the leaves will appear, big green ears seemingly unrelated to the yellow flowers of spring.
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At the foot of a farmer’s field, we saw another yellow flower, usually found in wooded wet areas or in hardwoods. The mottled green and purple leaves are the first identifying feature. Close-up, the nodding yellow flower with its recurved petals and drooping stamens show this is the Dog’s Tooth Violet, or Yellow Trout-lily (Erythronium americanum).
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Today, my yellow tulips are blooming, yet another addition to the yellow flowers of this season.
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All my best,
Jane
spring chorus – snipe
For the last two mornings, about 9:00, about one and a half hours after sunrise, I hear a song that is not a song. A winnowing ‘hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo,’ like a repeated, trailing set of high pitched notes, echoes in the grey woods. This is the mating display and call of a snipe. The amazing thing is, the call is not coming from the snipe’s throat, but from its feathers. As it flies, the air moving through the tail feathers makes the ‘call.’ To hear this sound, visit here.
The snipe is a bird of wetlands and marshes. It has a long bill and black, white and brown feathers. There is still lots of snow on the ground but this bird seems anxious to get on with the season.
The only other birds singing this morning were the crows and our neighbour’s rooster!
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Blackberry picking
On Monday we drove from our cabin down to the lake (on our newly-mowed road) and picked a bowl of wild blackberries. The brambles were brutal and we came away with several scratches between us. But we picked berries to the tremolo of the loon on the lake and will enjoy a ‘blackberry buckle’ later this week. Blackberry buckle is made by adding sugar and water to the berries and covering with spoonfuls of dumpling mix. The dumplings cook in the steam of the simmering berries.
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All my best,
Jane
scribble bird
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Winter Wren
Troglodytes hiemalis
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How to find
centre of forest.
Joy the objective.
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Tiny tail
shivers as he sings.
Delirious trill.
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Troglodyte
darts into thickets,
creeps into crevasses.
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Lifts an eyebrow,
joins a chime of wrens.
Elusive ripple,
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varied trill,
incoherent whir,
tremble to warble.
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Distinguish
the note, the half-note,
the tone, the tangle.
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Forget where
you once were going,
indecisive
scribble bird.
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All my best,
Jane
Pileated Woodpecker excavations
The Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is a common visitor in our yard. The size of the woodpecker and its triangular red crest are impossible to miss. The male also has a red stripe on the side of its face.
There is a big spruce tree in our grey woods where the Pileated Woodpecker loves to visit. The hole in the tree and the pile of woodchips below the hole say this woodpecker has been very busy. The woodpeckers drill these holes to get insects.
On a drive to see the Smyth Covered Bridge near Hoyt, New Brunswick, we found a roadside tree with evidence of the Pileated Woodpecker’s industry. The holes are almost a foot in length and deep enough to hide a hand.
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To humans, the best forests may seem to be woods with healthy trees. To provide good habitat for the Pileated Woodpecker, a forest should have lots of dead and fallen trees, to provide food and nesting sites.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2018
Celebrating bookstores and reading – Canadian Independent Bookstore Day
On Saturday, April 28, 2018, I will be participating in Canadian Independent Bookstore Day at Westminster Books in Fredericton. I will be there to talk with you about my books in the Meniscus Science Fiction Series and sign copies. I will be at the bookstore from 11:00 AM to noon. Hope to see you there!!!
Canadian Independent Bookstore Day is a day to celebrate the amazing independent bookstores in communities across Canada that develop and maintain a thriving book industry across the country. It is a day to go out into your community and enjoy the unique intersection of art, culture, business and opportunity that bookstores provide. Thanks to your participation, this event can continue to grow and thrive in the years to come. The purpose of Canadian Independent Bookstore Day is to show off the unique community spaces that bookstores create and was born from Authors For Indies.
Authors for Indies was a national grassroots movement in support of independent bookstores. It’s a day when authors take time to give back to the bookstores who support authors every day of the year by volunteering as guest booksellers. We meet and greet customers, recommend books, tell our friends and relatives to come to the store where we are working. Hundreds of authors across Canada have done this for the past three years. It’s been a national phenomenon.
Jane
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