The rattles of summer!
Westron Wind, when wilt thou blow, the small rain down can rain.
Summer Poppies in the Okanagan
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Juvenile Stars About to Leave the Nesting Colony
They are still being born.
They are countless and perfect.
Born from suns themselves.
At home in the complex interstellar environment.
And now they are leaving home.
Soon they will drift on the interstellar winds.
Among supernovae.
Through solar flares.
Among nebulae…
… and star clusters of all kinds.
It is the season for floating to the far corners of the universe.
… and beginning again.
The universe doesn’t extend.
It deepens and curves.
Water in the Land of Fire
Smoke has replaced the sky. It is the way of things.
Here are the dry hills. Overgrazing, a reduction to three species, one native and two of which are as flammable as gasoline. Nice.
Water: forestry nursery in the distance, sport fields below, and a royal gala apple orchard. Nicer yet.
Below are the old wetlands that used to store water. Note the recent disperal to high evaporation house plots. Exquisitely well planned.
European culture sits uneasily but orderly upon this smoky land.
Mule Deer, Gardener of the Sun
Look at the yellow dock gone to seed.
Look at a mule deer plant it in the sun.
There is balance in beauty and beauty in balance.
Everything leaves its trace.
Water Traveling in Time and Space
One image three times…
Wasp Drinking.
Earth Drinking.
Sun Drinking.
… that’s the way it is on this planet. That’s the way it is.
Salmon On the Way to Sea
While making arrangements for my father’s funeral a week ago, I walked down at dawn to the mouth of Simm’s Creek, on Eastern Vancouver Island. No, this is not rain.
Four years from now, with some incredible luck, this plucky little salmon will be coming home.
Others like it will be returning to the fire forests (note the smoke) over the mountains to the east. Fire, water and fish: it is enough.
Who Loves Lavender Now?
The queen of the hill, that’s who.
Look at her blending in!
In Memory of Hans Rhenisch, Gardener, 1932-2017
Hansel in 1935
It begins with a grandfather taking a boy out into the garden. Then comes eight decades (and a bit more) of working with the earth to keep that moment alive. Such energy along the way!
Hans Throwing Hay in the Black Forest, 1947
Then we say good-bye and take up the flame. Aufwiedersehen, Vater. Hello.
Thanks for taking me out into the orchard.
1965
And thanks for all the kale and the gift of stories.
Love, Harold
Water in Fire Country
The Okanogan River (left) Entering the Columbia
At the mouth of the Okanogan River, which begins with snow melting on the rocks above my house in mid-winter, water is privately owned, whether flooding the old Hudson Bay Company potato fields in the background right above, or the southern flats of the Colville Federated Tribes’ Territory (foreground left). That’s the way things work in this stretch of my valley: the bounty of the earth is transformed into individual wealth, which is then leveraged for profit. The only land-based health comes through the process of flooding you see above, which is called wilderness, a term to indicate the romance that silences native land in the West. Strangely enough, fires on private land alienated from water, are fought with public funds, just as the use of fear and public funds were used to fight imagined native aggression in 1858 and 1891 at the site in the image above. When there is talk of wilderness in this valley, it is talk of the dispossession of people and water, which are the same thing.
The World According to Wild Mustard
What starts out cool and soft and evaporating out of stone …
… leaves stone behind, warm and hard and singing in the wind.
These are the mysteries.
