mumma yaga

 Apr. 29 Forest: Tree House, River, Dollhouse, Brook. The ridge stream where green life is emerging from the pale winter leaves. The tiny waterway tumbles headlong down and down the ridge, in perfect imitation of a great rushing river with waterfalls, pools and deltas.  A miniature delta forms as the stream merges with the pond. Where the water pools, a clump of trees becomes almost an island. In the microcosmic garden of a mossy rock green life abounds. Everywhere things are growing, greening. This violet, barely the size of my wedding ring, wastes no time growing big or tall, just tiny leaves, tiny flowers, perfect and delicate.  A small world unto itself where the tree is a universe.. Moss grows on everything, like the vegetation of Venus in the Bradbury story, rainforest-proliferate. "He did not sleep... Things grew on him in layers...the small growths of the forest took root in his clothing. He felt the ivy cling and make a second garment over him; he felt the small ...

 Apr. 28 I was awake and thinking about getting up when K called me to come and see this. (5:52 am.) In minutes it had paled to gold, then the song ended and it was daylight. It was K who called it an orchestra of light. ***** I took Rain into Mansonville today on an errand and we stopped at Reilly House. They are open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There I found myself a replacement guitar, same three-quarter size as my broken one, in excellent condition. I was able to "date" it by the logo, which was in use by the makers from 1981 to 1988. The things you can find out on the internet...  I knew that a new guitar would come along one day, but did not expect it to be so soon. The universe unfolds as it should.  From Desiderata - "And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." * Nowhere is this more clear to me than when I am second-hand shopping, as inconsequential as that seems. Just when you need something, there it will be. ...

 Apr. 25 The red trillium I seldom saw in Ontario, was more familiar with the white. Here, I have seen no white ones yet, though there are more and more reds in bloom. I was writing to someone about science fiction and my autocorrect changed Sci fi to Sci if. Poetic. The wind is blowing through the forest up the mountain, sounding just like the 427, west of our Etobicoke house in the early morning. (Six or eight lanes of highway.) It doesn't matter where you are. There are wildflowers coming up in the hydro field where we walked the dog, and along the Mimico Creek. As the path from Echo Valley Park turns along the creek to West Deane Park you can find trout lilies and in the hydro field under the border-trees violet leaves are thick and the raspberry canes are red with new life. By now the first dandelions are in flower, of course, and in the neighbourhood lawns the tiny, early violets are doubtless flowering. ***** Fig being Rousseau's lion from The Sleeping Gypsy: Every time ...

 Apr. 22 the snow is a river blind as april  as summerless     pouring down the meadow the world ends at the south ridge all distance gone it snows though blood trilliums have bloomed in the woods the sun casts tree shadows on the fallen snow  but still snow flows down the mountain blown on the wind like a river whirled into eddies like a river  down and down Mumma Yaga

 Apr. 21 I put up the "Blind Dog" sign yesterday and already the name "Blind Dog Hill" is beginning to sound familiar in my mind. Fig is skinny as a rail now and his hair is falling out - mostly his long coat, his short, darker coat is so soft, but I feel his ribs under it. He continues to play but not so long, and likes to go outside; as long as he is with me he is content to walk, or lie on the grass and listen to the meadow sounds. The other day he growled when he heard a handful of robins fighting over a nest by the henhouse.                    He loves to drink from the pond and the stream.      Male-pattern dog baldness. How grey he is.  Below, passed out like a toddler among his toys. ***** This month marks the first anniversary of my mother-in-law's death. Her birthday was this month as well. Cameron would have been 95. It seems an age, not a year, since she died. Being in the grip of the pandemic has cha...