Bouffant and white

Oblivious to the smell of new tire, a hedge of bouffant and white briar roses--no funeral carnations these--opened their mouths to the rain next the Canadian Tire on Bank and Heron today. Their scent--rose by any other name--was enough to overpower smog and tire scent and coffee and donuts--perhaps even the pine air freshener of a man snoozing in his school bus, nearing time for the start of the second half of his split shift. Still a few rose hips showing--promising so much more than Vitamin C. I wasn't even in Alberta, but the wild rose was honourary floral emblem of the day. All that was missing was a bee.

Image result for vintage air freshener tree

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Things always end in the Summer

In the middle of the second major heatwave of the season, the City cut the wildflowers along the footpath. I mean they cut everything 30 inches on either side of the pavement, but since the flowers were my friends, all I saw was that they cut the flowers, even though they actually mowed indiscriminately. And it must have been a chore for the labourer in this heat, so his feet were heavy when he made hay of the prettiest parts of the Summer. But I can't get to that right now; I'm still reeling from the loss of chicory, and the other pinks and yellows and blues whose names I was just beginning to learn. "Program, get your program", I heard the barker call on my way to the bleachers. I turned once and caught his eye, and looked at the program in his hand and back into his eyes--all the while his eyes following mine--but then he looked back to his hand, and again into my eyes and he said "You can't tell the player without a card"! Did it matter that ...

We're past that now

First to arrive and last to leave the robins make you think you're in for an Indian Summer but I believe we're past that now still it was nice to see a group of four splashing in a puddle on the driveway when leaves have already been raked and first frost settling in to nightly routine unlike the English robin these are apparently a species of thrush still dainty in their own way their russet breasts matching the pumpkins on the steps I had a silly thought perhaps with their entreating chirps they were trick or treating perhaps they were old residents of the street come back in disguise to tease and remind us they're still here though much changed and diminished in size but tall yet in spirit as they tugged at the lawn for worms or whatever was going when life was already draining from the trees and the whispers of the dawn.

The city mover beat me to the chicory this evening maybe if I had passed by earlier I could have caught a glimpse of them but they will rise Phoenix like from the close cropped pile of grass and weed and present their brash and uneven beauty once again before the need for carpet and trimming loops of magic made by subterranean rug weavers is once again mandated and duly executed by the city crew in the burnt orange cabs of their ride along mowers browning the backs of their hands and letting the heat weather beat their faces to match the cabs and fulfill some unspoken contract between landscaping and maintenance and the gods of Chance Fortune as ever favouring the bold there will be other routs of the mover before the Summer is done and more rain hopefully if I can contain the fear of thunderheads building and more returns of visible biodiversity Nature never surrenders unconditionally but like a lover choosing her battl...

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