http://guysmith.ca/blog/ en-us LMNucleus CMS v3.66 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://guysmith.ca/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://guysmith.ca/blog/ xml-rss2.php?itemid=118 (another Covid change)
a variant of normal
enlightening as it was strange

Borne of deep mid-winter
of yearning for alignment
a change of orientation
to balance and refinement

Another way of standing
a gradual conversion
to therapeutic posture
in the practice of inversion

Something quite appealing in the fleet-footed feeling when there’s really no place I can go. Just focus on my breathing, contemplate the ceiling, and wait for my hair to grow.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=118 Sun, 13 Jun 2021 08:16:57 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=117 On daily Covid walks northern hills beckoned

January aspiration:
spying distant cliffs, desire borne of fascination

February determination:
charts, maps, local knowledge consultation

March disorientation:
wind, snow, directional miscalculation

Easter Sunday jubilation:
line of sight clear to St. Joseph Island, confirmation!

On the promontory there I planted my flag. Another conquest of lands previously unknown. Through binoculars I spied the long silver line of my walking route.

The descent, and the sign mounted by landowner: “Pike’s Peak this way.”

]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=117 Sun, 13 Jun 2021 08:15:25 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=116 Winds blow hard across the long border. Doesn't budge, stays shut. Daughter’s on the move again, leaving one city for another.

The hummingbirds appeared after Mother's Day
feeder swings wildly from the maple branch
they have young
hanging on

pierce the wind like darts
appear as sparks
then vanish

Night frost
somewhere a tiny nest

Nature is about hanging on
waiting it out
ready to move
when change comes

She finds the will to clear obstacles, moving onward, sparks spiralling behind.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=116 Sun, 13 Jun 2021 08:12:50 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=115 "hardest thing is, every day’s the same, nothing marks the passage of time ..."
(weddings, birthdays, trips ...)

only,

Little Dipper turning on Polaris
Return of the Hummingbird
Profusion of Iris
Day-night Cadence
Solar Eclipse

Repetition is peaceful as this confinement is freeing; an opening to the ways of change, to ways of knowing,

to time … the way in flows, in tides, winds, constellations ...]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=115 Sun, 13 Jun 2021 08:10:04 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=114 humble crow
should love
to fly
with wind
wings rolling
tip to treetop
curling
flip fore
aft open
door to sky

Free from pretense, free to roll headlong into the unpredictable, the crow tumbles in a sudden, commanding move to find a way through winter skies; at once bold and understated, haphazard and elegant.

Wish I could roll in life’s gusts with such ease … wish I could fly as a crow.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=114 Mon, 4 Jan 2021 15:11:48 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=113 aspen-mantled
touches
layered forest floor
grounded stick
night gaze
fixed
shining spheres
shouldered
upon
forked maple
perched

Like feathers silent as a wing, a staff finds my hand for the crossing from known to unknown. I, on hands and knees lost in complexity while another intelligence looks down, puzzled.

At night in my ordered room I like awake in peace ... just knowing it is near.]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=113 Tue, 10 Nov 2020 23:03:28 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=112 less I feel, harder I try
worse it goes, why oh why
is such a simple thing
prone to complication?

Stop chopping, start breathing,
free the mind to find
nerve and muscle aligned
in a swing of automation.

"Don't try to beat the skin off the ball," the old pro would say, holding a seven iron like a wizard's staff. "Okay, I'll try Dad." Eventually it would come, that effortless thing, that swing ... with its sweet sound of simple.]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=112 Tue, 10 Nov 2020 22:55:04 -0500 xml-rss2.php?itemid=111 a good place for Smallmouth, I’d assured myself

I intently reeling
Partner calmly reading
four outings, not a nibble

Upland, the squirrel’s constant chatter

Fishing turns to philosophy:
questioning ways of man
puzzling at ways of nature

Then a strike, tentative, perhaps Lake Trout!

… I’ll never know

I pull anchor and drift, let go the images of me landing fish; the whole enterprise takes on new purpose. I perceive fish as wise, like pine rooting in the rocks, as indifferent to my pursuits as the chattering squirrel.

Another September I shall paddle back, eager to cast and reel.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=111 Wed, 28 Oct 2020 10:42:11 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=110 but not to the somewhere
we have in mind

today shall be for discovery;
of what we are not seeking

call it disappointment
or an extra eight kilometres
a hike to a lake we never knew existed
on the fork taken

Another day we shall take the fork not taken, the unlikely looking trail that turns south. We shall ascend Joy’s Peak and look to the west, knowing something of that land where the trail bends and rises mysteriously.

It was a good day to venture outside our expectations.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=110 Wed, 28 Oct 2020 10:40:54 -0400 xml-rss2.php?itemid=109 Beneath a high calling
A calm to know
Of forest and shore
Of towering trees
At order and disorder
I drift and wonder
In the mysterious depth
Of shallow water

What I love best in a kayak is exploring the shallows, getting lost in the space between reflection and lake bottom, to awareness on another scale. One autumn day I was taken to a show of forest colour tumbling into still water.

Relaxed and drifting … an invitation to another dimension.
]]> General xml-rss2.php?itemid=109 Wed, 28 Oct 2020 10:38:25 -0400