Drifting

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So this morning it snowed and snowed

...and I answered emails and shoveled. Long story short: the Rustic Bunting is still here and still looks healthy, but its visits are far less predictable than they were earlier this winter.

Hats off to Glen for feeding the birds and keeping the bunting's feeding areas clear when we've been absent.

Harvey took these photos today. The first photo shows the long nails that a biologist had commented on when he was here to see the bird. And look at that tidy vent!











Photos by Harvey Schmidt.

The chances of ever seeing my work in hardcover

...are slim at best given that I mostly write poems and poem-like things, but it has always been my dream. So yesterday I watched Harvey open a box from Flyleaf Publishing out of the US. Inside was softcover and hardcover copies of True Bugs written by Laura Appleton-Smith, the latest title in The Books to Remember Series. Harvey's photo of a rostrum appears twice in this book.


I didn't have to ask him how it feels to see his work in a hardcover. His smile said it all.

My poem for Stephen Harper

...will be included in Rogue Stimulus: The Stephen Harper Holiday Anthology for a Prorogued Parliament. I'm delighted to be part of this "government-toppling anthology" as Mansfield Press puts it. Hats off to Stephen Brockwell, Stuart Ross and Mansfield Press for putting together this response. I won't share the title of my poem here as it would attract scads of spam.

I got the email saying my poem was accepted when I was out of town and I shared the news with the people I was with at the time. The ensuing conversation, while lacking any pro-prorogation, pro-Harper or pro-government elements, was civil and full of smiles. So the next morning I mentioned it to a couple other people. Well. Let's just say it was a hot breakfast.

A poem drives through the poet's mind

.

...blade down.

A very cool virtual music video collaboration

...between AJ Mithra, a middle school teacher in India, and animator Nancy Landrum of the US can be viewed over at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The latest video uses one of Harvey's photos of the Rustic Bunting.