Burning Season

We need healthy forests if we want to protect our climate. As the climate changes, forests become more vulnerable to insect outbreaks, droughts and wildfires. Simultaneously, when our forests are destroyed, their carbon is released back into the atmosphere, further impacting climate change. It's a horrifying one-two punch.
— Chris Noth

I'd rather fight 100 structure fires than a wildfire. With a structure fire you know where your flames are, but in the woods it can move anywhere; it can come right up behind you.
— Tom Watson

For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Now, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods-all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science-and act before it's too late.
— Barack Obama

Last Tuesday, at 6:30 a.m. I was taking the recycling out to the curb for pickup later in the day. It was just starting to become light out, but it was a very hazy sort of light. I glanced up and saw the moon just topping the trees – it was a very vivid shade of pinkish orange.

Naturally, I went back into the house for my phone to take a picture of it. Much to my disappointment, the colour didn’t translate well to the phone – sometimes my phone alters the colours it sees. So I went back into the house for my good camera and much to my surprise, the same thing happened. The colour was faded, save for a vivid ring around the edge.

It was at that point I realized it wasn’t the moon at all. First of all, it was perfectly round, which the moon wouldn’t have been because it was full several days earlier. And second, it was hanging in the eastern sky, making it the rising sun.

The smoke and fine ash from the surrounding forest fires we’d been experiencing made the air so hazy that not only was I able to take pictures of the sun, I could look at it with my naked eye.

Though the forest fires seem to be a fact of life elsewhere, this is the first time we’ve been impacted by them in this way. There were air quality warnings in effect. People were told to stay inside whenever possible and to consider wearing a mask if they had to go out for any length of time. Schools kept the children inside for recess.

That weekend I smelled smoke and thought the neighbors were having a fire – but they weren’t, it was the smoke-laden air being blown in the windows, which I closed when I realized what was happening. They’ve been closed ever since.

There is a total burn ban in effect. When the smoke was at its worst, there was sepia tone to the light outside. It was really eerie, and just a little creepy at times. There were discussions of what would you take with you if there was an evacuation order. Not that we were ever really in danger of that, but still . . .

But the air quality gradually returned to normal. And we’ve had enough rain to wash the fine dusting of ash away. I don’t know if that means the fires are under control now, but one can hope. And it’s also to be hoped that this is one trend that doesn’t continue.

The Rondine Verse Form

The Rondine is a 16th century French form, a descendant of the Rondeau, much like the Rondel, Rondelet, Triolet and Villanelle. It’s written in two stanzas, a septet (seven lines) and a quintet (five lines), which makes it a poem of twelve lines.

There are eight syllables per line, except for the seventh and twelfth lines that repeat the first four syllables of the first line as a refrain, known as a retrement. There is no set meter or subject matter, but there is a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-R, a-b-b-a-R, the R being the refrain.

I’m not sure if a schematic helps or not:

Rxxx,xxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
Rxxx

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa
Rxxx

This was an interesting form to write in. I kind of like how only the first four syllables are used as a refrain. And given the fact that we’ve been experiencing smoke from fires raging out of control around us for the last several days, I found the subject of today’s example quite easy to decide on.


World on Fire

The sun looks small, hanging so low
rising just above the treeline.
The red and orange and pink combine
to give the sky a pastel glow.
Surreal landscape down below
the dull pale orb with red outline—
the sun looks small.

Fine ashes from the fires blow
trapping the world without sunshine,
just sepia skies that combine
the worst of fear, the tales of woe—
the sun looks small.

It’s About Time

Gardening is the greatest tonic and therapy a human being can have. Even if you have only a tiny piece of earth, you can create something beautiful, which we all have a great need for. If we begin by respecting plants, it’s inevitable we’ll respect people.
— Audrey Hepburn

No single sort of garden suits everyone. Shut your eyes and dream of the garden you’d most love then open your eyes and start planting. Loved gardens flourish, boring ones are hard work.
— Jackie French

To create a garden is to search for a better world. In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise. Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch, it is based on the expectation of a glorious future. This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.
— Marina Schinz

It was bound to happen sooner or later. The danger of frost has finally passed *knock on wood* Last week was blistering hot. One night we left the windows open and the central air was coming on when I got up that morning (the thermostat is in the hallway that catches the breeze from the windows).

Then the next night we had a tiny little thunderstorm and the temperature dropped significantly. Two nights ago I left the windows down the hall open when I went to bed and the next morning the heat was coming on.

No frost though, which is good because last Monday I finally got my gardens in, and I thought I’d take a moment to share some pictures. We’ll start with the front garden:

That’s five flats of impatiens in the bottom part, with dark purple irises flanking them on either end. In the upper part is our scraggly bush collection, and pansies hanging from the shepherd’s crook.

One of the additions to our garden ornament collection is the large whirligig the father-in-law gave us. We tried a couple of different spots before finally settling on the peony garden for it.

Moving along to the back yard, I also got my vegetable gardens planted. The first one has a row of bush beans at the back, then tomatoes, and the string shows a row of spinach, one of carrots, and one of lettuce.

The tomato plants look a little wilted, but they were just planted the day I took the picture, and they’d just been watered.

The second garden has a row of clipped back asparagus in the back, a row of pepper plants, then beets, and a multicoloured lettuce. I’m hoping to get a couple of squash plants to go in beside the peppers on the far left.

The pond garden is coming along nicely:

And Kelsey park looks really nice too:

The granddaughter nagged her grapy relentlessly until he finally opened up the pool, only to find that it’s the greenest we’ve ever seen it:

And don’t think for a minute that green is a reflection of the trees at the back of the yard. It really is green. Actually, it was even greener that that. I took that picture yesterday, after the pool had been treated with shock and algaecide.

Anyone care for a swim?

Catena Rondo Verse Form

This form is not as simple as I first thought it was. Serves me right for just skimming over the descriptions instead of reading them fully. LOL

The Catena Rondo is another form invented by fellow Canadian Robin Skelton. He got the name by combing catena, meaning chain, with rondo, meaning circle. The quatrains making up this form repeat, bringing it full circle.

This a stanzaic form, which lends itself very well to longer poems because of the repetition of lines. It’s written in quatrains (four line stanzas). The first line and the last line of each quatrain are the same. The second and third lines rhyme. The second line of each quatrain becomes the first line of the following quatrain until the final quatrain, which is the first quatrain repeated.

Your Catena Rondo can be about whatever you wish. And there is no set syllable count, which makes it a little difficult to create a schematic, but I’ll do one using a six syllable version. The capital letters are the repeated lines:

xxxxxA
xxxxxb
xxxxxb
xxxxxA

xxxxxB
xxxxxc
xxxxxc
xxxxxB

xxxxxC
xxxxxd
xxxxxd
xxxxxC

xxxxxA
xxxxxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxA

I swear, it took me longer to come up with a start to my example than to write the example itself. Could the well be running dry? Oh, look, that could be the subject for another poem. I should write it down. :-D

Anyway, once I got going I found I really enjoyed writing in this form. I like the way the verses flow into each other because of the repetition. Seriously, you should give it a try!


Magic’s Price

Magic flows like water
within the circle of stone.
When I am all alone
magic flows like water.

Within the circle of stone
there is no escape for me,
I look to the stars and plea
within the circle of stone.

There is no escape for me,
I’ve brought this on myself
defying time itself—
there is no escape for me.

I’ve brought this on myself
for trying to change my fate
and knocking on hell’s gate—
I’ve brought this on myself.

For trying to change my fate
I’m taking my last breath.
My punishment is death
for trying to change my fate.

Magic flows like water
within the circle of stone.
When I am all alone
magic flows like water.

Sounding Off

Nights can never be real and enjoyable without the croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets.
― Michael Bassey Johnson

The crickets usher in a softness that smooths the harsh edges of a day now passing. And if their song does not somehow lull us to a softer sleep, then we have become deaf to things that matter in the process of listening to all that does not.
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.
― Ray Bradbury

When I was at a writing retreat last fall, I woke up one morning to the sound of a fog horn. Such a lonely sound, but it made me nostalgic. I tried to remember the last time I heard a fog horn, but I couldn’t. With all the advances in technology, ships no long need the fog horn to warn them that they’re getting too close to the shore.

Another lonely sound I miss are train whistles. We don’t live close to the tracks, but when I was little we could still hear the train whistles as they sped by to destinations unknown. Since that time there’s been a lot of development in our town, with houses filling in all the spare land right up to the tracks. Then the people who moved into these houses complained about the train whistles until the trains were silenced.

When I was a kid, we owned a big chunk of property behind our house, and where this property abutted onto our back yard was a low spot that filled with water every spring. And where there’s swampy water, there are bullfrogs, who are rather vocal when it comes to trying to attract a mate.

This time of early is a little early for the frogs and crickets, but the dawn chorus has been going on for a few weeks now, getting earlier every day. The dawn chorus starts when the first glow of sunrise appears on the horizon, and continues until the sun is fully up.

Of course the birds don’t magically stop chirping and singing once the sun is up, but the noise is greatly reduced in volume. Mind you, I’m just guessing it’s the sun being fully up that quiets them down. All I know is that it starts with the first hint of light, and then about an hour later it doesn’t seem as intense.

I didn’t grow up with air conditioning, so I’d fall asleep with my window open, being serenaded by the frogs and the crickets, the train whistles and the fog horn when the day started out foggy.

Now, we have central air, which means we sleep with the windows shut and there’s no lullaby save for the hum of the fan. If I sit outside at night I can hear the crickets, and if I’m really lucky a frog might have made its way to the pond in our back yard. And during a hot summer day I might hear the long, whining violin note of a cicada.

But things change, towns grow. These nostalgic sounds of summer have been replaced by revving motors, loud TVs and radios, and the sounds of construction. Just one more reason to miss the good ‘ole days.

The Octo Verse Form

Usually when I settle on a form of the week, I like to try and find several sources of information about it and then distill it all down to something that makes sense. I have to tell you, wording really matters when it comes to this form.

“Octo Verse Form” gave me a couple of hits, one of which was a WiX site with a totally different version of this form. There were several sites listed with a definition for an Octastich, which is basically an eight line poem. And if you leave off the word “form” from your search, you get a pile of listings for an Octoverse software.

So then I tried to do a search for the creator of it, James Neille Northe, and I discovered he’s an American educator who also invented the Cinquino (another poem I could find very little about).

Anyway, as the name implies, the Octo Verse is an octastich, which means it’s an eight line poem. As well, all of the lines are eight syllables each. The nice thing about this poem is, it doesn’t rhyme. However (you just knew there had to be a catch, didn’t you?) at the same time, if you do a schematic it kind of does rhyme, because lines are repeated. The first line repeats as the last line, line two repeats as line seven, and line three repeats as line six. Lines four and five are kinda just there.

Here's a schematic:

xxxxxxxA
xxxxxxxB
xxxxxxxC
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxC
xxxxxxxB
xxxxxxxA

Despite all the confusion surrounding this poetry form, I kind of liked it. Which is why I wrote two examples. :-)


Poets

Do poets love as others do?
This is something we can ponder
when the candle burns low at night
and words lie still upon the page
while the restless dreaming fills us.
When the candle burns low at night,
this is something we can ponder –
do poets love as others do?


The Greening

The greening has begun again
as it does each year at this time,
when spring slides into the summer
and the days grow longer, brighter,
and the air begins to warm us
when spring slides into the summer
as it does each year at this time.
The greening has begun again.

Inheritance Hoarding

At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.
― Nicole Krauss

Hoarding can never end, for the heart of man always covets for more, its raging appetites can only be quenched by the heavy sands of the grave.
― Bangambiki Habyarimana

The more space they, hoarders, have available, the more space they fill. Perhaps this is actually the goal--to fill space.
― Randy O. Frost

Once upon a time I thought I was going to be an artist. My father and friends thought so too. I even had the school I was going to go to all picked out. But for one reason and another, I didn’t. I never lost my love of art though, and I have a closet full of art supplies to prove it.

On the weekend I helped my father-in-law clean out the room holding my baker’s rack – I was happy to do it because it means I’ll be taking possession of the rack as soon as his neighbor with the truck is available. Anyway, this room was the one my mother-in-law used as her art studio.

As well as stacks of paintings, there was a great deal of art supplies – some of which had never been used. Since the point was to get rid of stuff, I ended up bringing a large box of it home.

This is the box I brought home, not the stuff I kept. I kept a set of unopened oil paints, a book on tips for painting with acrylics, and some brushes, and patted myself on the back for showing such restraint.

Some day, my daughter will have to go through my art closet and I’m sure she’ll be appalled at the amount of art supplies I’ve been hoarding – most of which have never been used. Which begs the question, if I’m not using them, why am I keeping them?

This is a question every hoarder faces at one time or another. And the answer is, because some day I might. Every once in awhile I find myself doodling, which leads to sketching, but I haven’t actually painted in several years, mainly because I don’t really have any place I can do it. I just took over one room for crafts, I can’t take over another for art.

And speaking of crafts, another thing he gave me was the mother-in-law’s sewing box:

It needs a bit of repairing, but it’s a still a nice box. I’m not sure if I want to keep it or just fix it up and pass it to someone else. But it didn’t come empty:

I’m not sure how well you can see from the picture, but there’s all kinds of thread and some needles, zippers and elastic, and all kinds of other sewing notions. I don’t need any of it, but I’ll still have to go through it to see what’s useful and what’s not.

Again, I’m going to have to try and overcome my hoarding tendencies and keep only what I can actually use. I already have a large stash of sewing supplies (as opposed to needlework supplies).

What I’m really looking forward to is having the baker’s rack in place so I finally have some place where I can work at my crafts, like my jewelry making, within easy reach of my supplies.

Maybe I’ll finally be able to start reducing my hoard.