and the snow melts even as it falls

First thing yesterday morning, Monday, there was light snow that had fallen in the night covering the ground and resting on the top edges of twigs and branches and evergreen needles (though none of these really have edges) because there was no wind to speak of.  I like the old-fashioned, perhaps rural, feel of that last phrase.  “To speak of” is more lyrical to my mind and ear than “worth mentioning” or some equivalent phrase; in fact, “no wind” is something that we do often speak of, because wind is something that is very often part of our landscape and seascape here.  So there was no wind to speak of, which is worth mentioning, and the snow lay gently, even delicately, balanced on twigs and branches and needles and covering the ground.  It was a pretty sight.

About mid-morning it started to snow again, lightly but steadily, with just enough breeze to make it drift across the window at an attractive angle before it landed.  It was a wintry wonderland scene, even though I knew the temperature would rise and the snow would likely melt pretty soon. 

It reminded me of a long poem I wrote decades ago that contains the following lines:

and the snow melts even as it falls.

A friend, who was much older than I,

told me, It is always thus.

My good older friend always spoke that way, a relic perhaps of the home in the Edwardian English countryside she grew up in, or perhaps of her years of study at the Sorbonne, or both.  She was usually right, and we didn’t often disagree, certainly not when she said that.  I like that writing about the snowfall made me think of her, especially on this late winter night.

I also like to think of another “old good friend”, though I never did meet him; in fact, he died on March 4, 1963, two days after my 18^th birthday, and though his name was on my horizon back then, I had no real knowledge at that point of the profound impact he would have on my life and my writing.  He was, of course, the good physician, Dr. Williams, whose work I ended up exploring in some considerable detail and end up revisiting every now and again, such as when this showed up as yesterday’s Poem-A-Day.

Spring Storm
by William Carlos Williams

The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.

I love the way he always attended to the physical details of the ordinary and that an early spring storm could bring his attention and his craft to the making of that fine small poem.

And then there was his friend Kreymborg’s tribute, which arrived in my inbox the day before, on the anniversary of Williams' death:

To W.C.W. M.D.
by Alfred Kreymborg

There has been
Another death.
This time
I bring it to you.
You are kind,
Brutal,
You know
How to lower
Bodies.
I ask only
That the rope
Isn't silk,
(Silk doesn't break)
Nor thread,
(Thread does.)
If it lifts
And lowers
Common things,
It will do.

That’s all really – we had a gentle snowfall, I was reminded of my good friend Anne as I wrote this post, and while I was getting ready to tap a couple of maple trees this afternoon, I took a photo of the small brook, running after our last “spring storm”. 

And, of course, there was a lovely pair of poems.

They say it’s your birthday

And once again it is. The evidence began early this morning when I looked at my g-mail and found that friends from earlier time zones had started sending me greetings and good wishes through Facebook.  Of course I did know it was my birthday and had seen a reminder last weekend in St. Catharine’s; namely, an invitation on the fridge to Levi’s 5^th birthday, which happens today and is being celebrated tomorrow, and which I know that the amazing M. will attend.  Shortly after I started the computer the phone rang, a call from St. Catharine’s with JE and M. singing Happy Birthday to me twice, first the slow version, then in quick time, a great start to the day.

Our house has systems and there are related chores, like reviving the fire in the stove and bringing more wood in from the shed, making the morning tea, looking at the bird feeders, checking the colour of the harbour (blue-grey this morning) and the direction of the wind (shifted from yesterday’s NE to NNE), and assessing how much snow fell in the night.  I am not the sort of person who easily stays in bed while others start the day and cater to my needs; I’d rather be the one who gets up and actually does these things, getting my day started through being active, and I’m especially happy to do that on my birthday.

There were many treats today.  Here are some:

• the sound of a song sparrow when I went to get wood, a song that started a few days ago, a harbinger of spring 
• a gang of white-throated sparrows that came to feed, one on each of the feeders, the rest picking around in the new snow for the seeds that got knocked down, ten of these little beauties in all 
•  a seagull against the grey sky, belly white like the snow, back grey like the clouds, calling as it glided on the crest of the wind 
•  breakfast by the dining room windows with Lorraine and our daughter E. and talk of old times, birthdays past, and the vagaries of our lives 
• a grey-white splash on the window next to me that I took to be a good luck birthday wish from the seagull (and that I cleaned off the glass a little later with hot water, sponge and squeegee, and a very long extensible pole) 
• our very first ski of this nonexistent winter over at York Redoubt, feeling the stretch in my arms and legs and listening to the swish of the skis through the snow, especially when I hit the right spot on the trail for a long stride, a long glide, and the elation of flying past the stone walls and cold trees 
• doing a short edit for JE and then meeting a graduate student in education to work with her on an assignment that explored belonging, group relations, and creativity 
• joining E. at the Fireside for drinks, martinis and margarita, in comfy chairs next to the fire, and enjoying the sweet taste of lobster cake snacks 
• then having dinner with her at Suzuki (formerly Doraku) with dragon roll, rainbow roll, other great rolls, our first sushi pizza, gensai tea, and a large bottle of Kirin Ichiban beer to share 
• the chance to reflect on the people I know through the good wishes they keep on sending to help me celebrate this day 
• and, finally, the chance to look back on the day, remember it all with pleasure, and have the time to write this, my 156^th blog post since I started this endeavour, exactly three years ago today

It was a treat all the way and all the day – I hope Lou Reed (now 68) and Levi (now five) had days that were just as good!  They say it’s your birthday, and it is, today!  Happy birthdays to you too.

Crystal Crescent Beach

Yesterday, the last Sunday in January, there was still little winter in evidence, the sun was shining, and the wind was light, so we decided to head out to Crystal Crescent for a morning walk.

For someone recently arrived from Toronto, there was lots to look at and to photograph.

There were waves breaking

and the sea and sky were dramatic.

There was a thin clear piece of ice in the stream with water quietly purling up through small holes.

The sand at this beach is soft and fine.

Two women I love were walking ahead of me.

A piece of kelp from a storm lay on the grass next to the boardwalk.

And the beach was as beautiful as it always is.

Absence of Winter

Today is the 9^th of January, the sun is shining, the skiff of snow from overnight has mostly melted, and we are still patiently awaiting winter.

Yesterday, Sunday, we headed to East Chester around midday for a family gathering.  On Herring Cove Road a young woman was walking along with just a sweatshirt and bare hands.  Now I am used to younger people going around in light jackets, sneakers, and no gloves on frigid winter days, but this girl was not showing off her youthful imperviousness to the season; she was, in fact, dressed appropriately for the day, which had light winds and sunshine and was a few degrees above zero.

As we headed down the 103, the sky was clear with some water-colour clouds (since I was driving and L. was snoozing, there are unfortunately no images – you’ll just have to picture the warm blue clarity of that sky and the softened edges of the lit clouds).  When the sun shone in my side window, it felt as if it was as high in the sky as it is in late March, when you really begin to feel the strength of its warmth; it felt springlike. 

That highway has both shoulder and centre-line milled rumble strips, and a real treat as I drove was to watch the strips on our side that were filled with meltwater and reflected bright segments of trees, sky, and clouds as we flew past.  The brightness of the day and the obvious warmth lifted my spirits, as if the burden of winter had passed, which of course it hasn’t – as I noted in the opening of the piece, we are actually waiting for winter to finally arrive.

We have had fluky days like this other years, and they are a treat when they happen, but this year is different.  Winter really has not arrived yet.  People’s lawns and the Commons were still bright green at Christmas, and even though a couple of good night-time freezes have turned them a little more dun, strong traces of green are still there.  We have had two snowstorms, but both were wet, there are no residual snowbanks anywhere, and lakes and ponds are barely skimmed over with ice.

We all went for a walk along the old rail line trail yesterday, basking in the afternoon sun.  When we returned to the house there was a long conversation about that thing we often want to talk about, the weather.  We didn’t just talk of the winter we are waiting for this year, we got into long-term forecasts and the absence of our winter sports (instead of coasting on the hill, a couple of grandchildren were throwing a baseball, and several of the others were bouncing in the trampoline, one even in bare feet).  L. and I are seriously hoping for some snow to ski over or some good ice on the Frog Pond for skating, but there were those who argued strenuously that the lakes wouldn’t even freeze over this year.  There was a skim of ice on most of the lakes we passed along the highway, but I seriously wonder.  Tonight the low is minus 5 (minus 10 in low-lying areas), but the high tomorrow is plus 3, so I guess we will wait and see.

So, winter, we are ready and waiting, and I know I do tempt fate by saying anything at all about it, but I do hope that we get some semblance of winter weather this year, some brisk outdoor activities involving snow or ice, time to enjoy the warmth of the woodstove after, and spring coming along a little later when we are really ready and really need it.

Show and Tell

I am just coming to the end of my first semester teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, known affectionately as NSCAD (pronounced nas-cad).  It has been a happy return for me, a return to teaching, that is, as I had been away from it for three years since leaving The Koç School in Istanbul in 2008.

I haven’t always taught; in fact, for the eleven years I worked as Principal at Alice Street School (four of them) and Uniacke District School (the other seven), I was a non-teaching administrator.  That meant I was free to go into classrooms on occasion, play around a little at teaching, get the students all worked up through making poems, and then leave the regular teacher to pick up the pieces and try to restore some sense of routine.  It was fun, and I did teach those kids something, but I was Mr. Field, the Principal, and I never could have that relationship you can develop by being the teacher who has worked with them over the long term.

When I retired from Uniacke in 2003 one of the parents presented me with a little memento she had made, one I have treasured ever since.  I liked that she included an apple, not just the usual apple for the teacher, but also the apple I would always take to generate sensory imagery words for making poems during my first poetry session with an Elementary class.  The tiny pencil in the blue pot was also significant for me because I am known to always carry a pencil in my breast pocket.  The bell is a nice touch for a teacher or principal, and our local of the Teachers Union gave me a real one with my name on it as well.  And I really like the little stack of books, which includes three titles: Canada, Poetry, and English.  The first was because she knew I was going to be teaching in Türkiye, and the other two were for reasons obvious to anyone who knows me.

The Mr. Field sign was on my desk for the five years of High School English I taught at Koç in Istanbul, and I have a multitude of memories of the great students and fellow teachers I worked with there.  I also have various mementoes, tangible and intangible, of that teaching time there, but the small bespectacled high-kicking little martial arts guy is a more recent arrival on my desk.   

He was a gift from a young Chinese student I have been working with for almost two years now.  It is one-to-one tutoring rather than classroom teaching, but it has some of the same kind of rewards I have always cherished in pedagogy.  This little guy was a gift she brought for me from her visit to China last summer just before enrolling in her freshman year at university.  I don’t know exactly why she chose him, but I’ll pretend at least that she wants to inspire me to be a kick-ass teacher (or maybe even thinks I am one).

On Wednesday I will meet my Design English students, many of them also Chinese, for our last NSCAD class together.  The fourteen weeks of the semester have gone by quickly and it has been consistently a treat to be their instructor.  For our last class we are going to do Show and Tell.  Since none of them attended Elementary here in Canada, I had to explain what it was.  I want it to give a chance for each of us to reintroduce ourselves, after fourteen weeks of learning together, by showing some object or image that tells something about who we are.  We’ll talk about it and ask each other questions and celebrate whatever it is we celebrate (or mourn) in our last class of teaching and learning together.

As for me, I’m happy to be back in the classroom teaching again, so I’ll be taking my two little artefacts to class for Show and Tell.

Crows!

I didn’t realize when I got up this morning that today would be a day I engaged with crows.  After breakfast I did watch one from the kitchen window as it worked on the remnants of the suet cake in the rather beat-up green wire cage I put it in.  I always replenish the suet knowing that the chickadees and jays will come, but also hoping for a return of the downy and hairy woodpeckers from previous years.  No woodpeckers this year, but a problem with the crows.  I haven’t seen them do it, but they (I’m sure it’s them!) seem to have figured out how the open the cage and make off with the suet cake, a reminder of the small steak one of them stole from next to the barbecue back in the spring.  This time, however, I’ve used a twist-tie to foil their tricks, and the cake has stayed.

This morning’s crow flew up to the slender branch the cage hangs from, held onto the branch with one claw and the cage with the other, and managed to twist itself around to be able to peck at the suet from underneath.  I went to get the camera.  When I got back to the window, our neighbourhood squirrel, whom I hadn’t seen since late summer, was on the branch approaching the crow.  I wanted to catch this confrontation, but just as I carefully raised the camera, the crow flew down to the ground and left the squirrel to chip away at the suet.

Before we went for our Monday swim we stopped down by the Dingle in Fleming Park to check on crows.  Lorraine had her Bronica loaded with a roll of black-and-white in the hope of catching some on film.  We heard and saw lots in the distance, way back in the trees, and I even saw some chase a small falcon that swooped through their territory, but none came anywhere near us; the best we were able to do was attract a bunch of mallard ducks who kept pecking (if ducks can peck with bills like that) in the bright grass to find and eat whatever they were finding and eating there.

Later we came back, parked the car by a yellow barricade where we had seen a few crows, and made our way down to the stream hoping to catch them this time.  We had a small bag of cookies from Heppy’s (really good raisin cookies!) and decided to try to attract the crows with them.  I walked along the path, feeling like Hansel, as I broke off little bits of cookie and dropped them behind me.  The crows began to call out and follow me, and then I felt more like the Pied Piper with these wonderful birds flying from branch to branch behind me.

We both got some shots of these intelligent black beauties.  Some even came close enough to catch the bits of cookie (the ones I didn’t eat myself) before they landed. 

I loved the fact that one brave crow came to within a metre of my foot, hoping I had another piece to donate to its cause.

And after we came back from buying more film, I found a black feather on the ground where we had been photographing.  For some reason, perhaps the lateness of the day, the crows were much less interested in bits of cookie and ended up flying off into the woods, but we had our images, ate the cookie remnants, and headed home.

I do love these birds, they are so smart and so beautiful, and I’ll bring cookies for them any day if it means they’ll come and engage with me!

The Sweet Music of Africville Stories

On Saturday night we had a treat.  Our friend Sylvia had told us about it earlier in the week, and I had bought tickets, but we hadn’t had time to think too much about it.  That absence of a heightened sense of anticipation or expectation made it even more of a treat and us even more ready to be transported by the event.  Which we were!

We arrived at the Maritime Conservatory and went upstairs to the familiar terrain of the Lilian Piercey Concert Hall where we had often heard wonderful classical and cabaret concerts, often featuring people we knew.  There was a good-sized crowd, but as so often happens the first two rows were pretty much empty.  We saw Sylvia waving so we sat just in front of her and her sisters in the second row and waited for the concert to start.  The stage was arranged with a piano on the left, a skeletal electric stand-up bass in the middle, and a drum kit on the right.  In front were two mikes, one centre stage and the other next to the curtain on the right.  It was a jazz setup.

After the intro by Charla Williams the band came out, led by Joe Sealy.  Joe spoke quietly about the piece, Africville Stories, based on his earlier Africville Suite, and the fact that it would be narrated by his good friend Jackie Richardson, who gave a sweet smile.  Paul Novotny, the bass player with his suit and skinny Brubeck style necktie, also smiled, and Dave Burton took his serious seat in back of the drum set.  The mike on the right side was vacant as Joe sat at the piano and Jackie started the story.

Her voice had a resonance and a depth of musicality, and she pulled us right into the narrative.  And then the music started.  Well!  There were hums and murmurs and aha’s from among us as Jackie started to sing.  The music built and her volume built and the excitement in the room built as she sang “Deep down inside” and she got deep down inside and pulled us all there with her until the murmurs got louder and the energy built and by the time she found her way to the end of the piece we were all standing and clapping and shouting.  The place was jumping like I’d never seen it jump before!

And that was just the first of the Africville stories!  We sat ourselves down and settled down for the next story and its song.  There were no vocals, but Chris Mitchell came on to pick up one of his saxophones and start singing with it, and the band took off with him.  Jackie was at the edge of the stage, hardly able to contain herself, Joe at the piano was playing back to Chris, Paul on the bass was strumming and grinning, Dave’s drums were under and over and around every move they all made, and we were approaching bliss out there on the floor.

The show went on, more stories, more great songs, solos that held you in their subtle and inevitable grasp, and lyrical lyrics where Jackie soared and rumbled and whispered, until our hands were sore from clapping and our voices hoarse from shouting out.  It was ninety minutes of musical energy filled with sadness and joy, soulful solace for the brutal loss of the community of Africville and soulful celebration of the memory of place and people and spirit, and it was accomplished through the sweet power of Joe’s composition and everyone’s beautiful music.

At the end, when we finally stopped shouting and whistling and clapping, we ended up looking around in a state of wonder.  Sylvia said she had heard Jackie before but never like this.  I said she was transported.  And she was.  And we all were.

It was a place to be.  Wish you could have been there too.   

Barred Owl

On Sunday we were working with a rented chipper-shredder, chipping and shredding high piles of branches from all the cutting and clearing we’ve been doing around here.  It was a good day’s work, shared with neighbours and friends, and we were all getting pretty weary towards the end of the day. 

While it is true that the chipper-shredder does the really heavy work, chipping and shredding whatever we feed into it, our job is to keep feeding it and that can tire a person out.  Se we ended up loosening and hauling branches and small trees from the pile, aligning the butt ends, tilting them up to feed into the hopper, and then pushing and wiggling and prodding them until they had made it through the blades and shot out in a steady stream of chips and shreds.   It was repetitive work that strained our shoulders, arms, and hands, and it took up the large part of our day.

So it was important that every now and again someone would turn the key to shut the machine down so that we could have a break.  It was around five o’clock when we took our last one, and we were all sitting on the back deck, pretty tired and pretty quiet, enjoying the peace of late afternoon without the noise of the machine.

That was when I noticed the noise of the crows.  I am used to hearing them talking and calling over the neighbourhood, but this was different, a real cacophony of sound, persistent and insistent, obviously riled up about something that had interfered with their routine.  I wondered what it could be but was too weary to get up and try to find out.  Then I noticed my neighbour’s wife coming in our lane from the path, and she told us what had happened.  Of course, it all made sense -- an owl had wandered into the neighbourhood, the crows and jays had found it, and now they were determined to chase it out.

Suddenly no one was tired, we all hurried through to their lane and up toward the main road, and there were the crows.  They got quieter and fewer with people approaching, and there, high up in a tree, was the owl.  It was a dark shape, much larger than the crows or the couple of blue jays that were also harassing it, and it puffed itself even bigger when the other birds got close.  No one had a camera or binoculars so there was nothing else to do but try to get closer for a clearer view. 

By the time I got under the tree the other birds had left and the owl was looking down at me.  It had the large round head with eye circles, dark eyes, bars across its upper chest, and vertical streaks down its breast that marked it as a barred owl.  Lorraine and I used to see one now and again over on the Middle Road when we first moved here, but it’s more than ten years now since I’ve seen an owl in the neighbourhood, and I’ve never heard one.

So it was a treat, and I stayed a while, looking back at the owl, noting all of its distinguishing marks, and wondering whether it had just dropped in or was going to be working in the neighbourhood on a regular basis.  Finally we did head back and start the chipper-shredder, and about an hour later found the branch we had been looking for, the last one.  It was getting dark as we shut things down, and I allowed myself to think about a cold crisp glass of pinot grigio that would be waiting once I had showered and changed. 

And I thought about the owl, more peaceful now that the crows had gone to roost, and wished it a good night.

Food Nostalgia: Gölyazı and Yalova (courtesy of the Athens)

On a recent Wednesday we were both teaching and at the end of the day needed to get something to eat before going to an artist’s talk at a local art gallery.  We decided to go to the Athens on Quinpool to split one of their calamari salads and a large draught.  I was glad we did.

We checked out the menu to confirm that the salad was what we wanted and agreed that we would have to request extra olive oil on it because The Athens doesn’t seem to think the calamari salad needed much.  We were sure about the beer but not so sure about whether we should order something more so we explored the Appetizers section.  I was intrigued by the taramosalata, a dip made from caviar, lemon juice, and potato, so we ordered it.  I was glad we did.

The dip came first, with wedges of pita.  What I loved was the fact that the first taste took me right back to Gölyazı, an island in Ulubat Gölü, a large shallow lake just west of Bursa.  Once we watched a fish auction in Gölyazı in the open area just beyond the big yellow camii where the local sellers and buyers stood in a circle around a kind of small arena where various large and strange-looking fish were dumped in the centre and bid on.  I don’t know if any were beluga, but I do remember one prehistoric looking creature with a row of large, thick spikes along its spine.  It must have weighed fifty or more kg and I wonder now if it was a bearer of caviar.

The other connection was to a medium-sized jar with a white plastic top that I bought from a compact man in a sports coat and cap in the market area in front of the camii close to where the minibus parked.  I may have paid only 5 TL for it, but it was a treasure I kept in the fridge back on campus and spread on toast whenever I needed a treat, taramosalata made by the small man in Gölyazı, a memory of a time and place and of a distinct and wonderful taste, sometimes augmented by a cold glass of beer.

Next we had our calamari salad, which the Athens is very good at making, as long as you remind them of the need to add the olive oil.  Here the connection was not so immediate and direct, unlike the taramosalata whose sharp and immediate taste put you right there in Gölyazı.  Instead, the Athens salad reminded us of the kalamar we always ordered at Unsal Balık on the waterfront in Yalova where the ferries from the islands always tied up.

You can read here a detailed account of the great fish soup and salads they serve there.  What we also loved about kalamar in Türkiye was the fact that it was always fresh and always served with a thick white sauce, maybe made from yoghurt and bread crumbs.  We have enjoyed it at Unsal on the Yalova waterfront and from the high terraces of the fish restaurants overlooking the harbour and beach at Şile as the sun was setting into the Black Sea.  It was consistently a treat and often a sign that soon we were heading back to the school and getting ready for another week of work.

So the good old Athens, Halifax’s favourite family restaurant, I’ve heard, provided us with a nice treat for supper after teaching and a nice hit of nostalgia for places and dishes we love and for the good people we shared them with   

Afiyet olsun, they would say over there.  Here it is simply Enjoy, and we do.

September Evening

This September evening was quiet, and the air was still.  The crows were calling from Irene's roof and chimney next door to other crows on treetops and power poles throughout the neighbourhood.

The harbour was calm where the small container ship headed into port along the inside passage.

You could still hear the faint sound of swells breaking just beyond the lighthouse as the sun dropped in the sky, but the reflection was steady in the water.

The light was lovely enough to get Lorraine out on the deck with her camera.

The bright white Carnival Glory started to head out to sea.

And the growing moon appeared from among the clouds with their hints of pink above the grey band of fog as the evening continued to drop away into nighttime.