Blackberries: Wild Urbanity

the sun was up but 
not up so high that it could see the blackberries 
drooping over the leaning gray fence slats

I was up too, on the last leg of my morning walk 
down a quiet gravelled and grassy back alley
that wandered aimlessly from the paved street.

blackberries hung heavy, some ripe, some still green, 
dried flower crusty collars scrunched back and down
while the youngster flowers bloomed high and pink.

blackberries, growing wild along fences and poles
their roots latticed beneath the city
wrapped around and through urban infrastructure.

small ripe blackberries offered themselves 

to my outstretched fingers bravely plucking 

dark juicy berries from beneath 

shading leaves and protective thorns.

it was only a small handful, but destined for
my breakfast bowl of oatmeal, butter and honey
and enough to treat my tastebuds with 

flavoured theme of a Victoria summer.

the afternoon sun, hot and bright
warmed and ripened the bushes 

loaded with the fruits of nature’s labour ~
my breakfast bowl and tastebuds will be treated again to this abundance.

“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”

~ Attributed to Isadora Duncan

Growth Hidden by Time

Several days remain to walk and write through this month.

Each twenty four hours moving on in seconds and minutes in each day.

Either busily racing or ambling along as if all the time in the world.

Daily themes shift with 

thoughts, work or amusement.

When we chase things that look like they need catching, time careens by but when we finally catch what we are chasing, time stops. Cold.

We are left with the taste of time, questionably spent, in our mouths.

Choosing a theme is like that ~
chasing and catching, 

playing with and figuring out.

As July’s days grow shorter and yet seem longer still, the shine and glow has disappeared from whatever that idea first was.

To be certain, there will be another chase 

while learning secretly happened behind the times.

“But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices 

with us, forward into the unknown. We can only move on.”

~ Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

Author's note: Edited December 19, 2023

No Competition!!

When I walk at night or in the morning, really any time of day….

men, women, couples, singles walk a dog or dogs.

Tall gangly brown afghan dogs or short sharp Scottie dogs,

grey skeletal whippets or great lumbering hairy mounds of sheep dogs

My family dogs came with mixed and muddled pedigrees,

some definitely mutts, yet the very kindest of dogs to my mind.

No blue ribbons from judges at prestigious dog shows,

their stance and manner all wrong, 

not in keeping with a serious competitive theme.

Instead, coats dripping from a swim in cold water chasing a stick

bring sand into the house after flinging water in wide circles.

Happy faces and pink tongues slather “I love you! So! Much!” 

underscored with wildly waving tails and expressive eyes.

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”

~ Josh Billings

A Touch of Summer Sun

This morning, as in every other summer morning, I took my writing and reading outside to my patio. Today was a bit different as clouds hovered and dripped rain. Pulling my table back to the wall and as far under the eaves as possible, snuggled warmly in a sweater and with the outside heater/firebox on, I scribbled away for an hour. No ‘early morning theme’ flowed through my pen for tonight’s blog. Throughout the day, I wrote in small pieces about other things, however tonight seems like most of today. Quiet and still. A walk into the Garry Oak Meadow of Beacon Hill Park was to have inspired some bit of wit or wisdom. However, the cool damp seems to have emptied the streets of summer sun, joggers and inspiration....although the children playing in the park seem not to have noticed.

“The world is quiet here.”

~ Lemony Snicket

Twin Themes

Twin Themes

Yellow stained eyes looked up the basement stairs from the wine cellar. Thin light glowed from beneath the kitchen door. Wine soaked skin, the aroma of aged alcohol part of him in his too rapidly aging body. A cracked mirror on the back of the kitchen door, a very odd place for a mirror, showed a forty year old man in his early sixty’s considering coming back to life. Could he reverse that image of agedness or would he forever be recognized by his friends and family as that old guy who is always coming up from the wine cellar? Easier to slip out the side door of the basement. No flight of stairs to try to climb. He could return to the friendly noisy loneliness of the bar room. In the kitchen there was a special angry loneliness of shame stirred and cooked by many in his family. A recipe passed handily through generations. Maybe it is safer to stay in the basement with dusty wine bottles. They lie quietly on their shelves, waiting patiently for someone to take care of them. 

~~~~~

Can there be a happy ending in these themes of loneliness and indecision?

“Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision.”

~ John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

A Breezy Musical Theme

Poppies and grasses climbed the old piano’s side.
Classical notes flew up to join summer birds on the wing.
Sandy beach vast and warm ~
sun sparkled on water blue,
children played in the sun.

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind,

flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

~ Plato

Theme and Theory

Prose or poetry escapes me this evening.
Running to hide in the corners of my mind,
only peeking out briefly for this little muse.
Today’s focus, besides the usual homemaking, was writing.  
Oh, not penmanship or scratching and scribbling on the page, 
but scanning through books for structure and form,
sketching ideas on my dry erase boards
fleshing out what has already been written
designing ‘tips and tools’ to fit the theme being written
hanging from the branches of theme and theory ~
and so the muse continues to branch and grow.

“The absence of a muse can be even more inspirational than it’s presence.”

~ ALAgrApHY