Another page from the field sketchbook

This time it's a Silverberry doodle. You can compare it with the finished product here, if you're so inclined.

In other words, I don't have much to say about it.

POV

Wax, wane, rise, set;
We have our phases like any other space rock
plodding around an insignificant star.
And what if we are Blue
creating marvelous green?
We are so small
statistically we don't exist.
Then how can this infested stone be everything?
Worlds on worlds within a water drop
is all...
I see more value in a dogwood leaf
than Mighty Mankind the Precopernican.
How, after all this time,
do we still find ourselves the centre of it all?
Better to know what we have seen:
That we are each of us worlds to some
and invisible to the next;
That we are made of the same stuff
as the amoeba and the elephant;
that we could fit
if we would but window our castles,
look out on the universe and see
a world within a world within a
drop in the ocean.

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Like this one, POV was part of the longer poem I called Morph. It was, I suppose, a look at changes, appearances, and how they affect our views of ourselves.

This poem might sound a little less angry if you saw it with the rest of the cycle. Or maybe not. I don't know. Sometimes I just get really ticked about how self-centred and arrogant our species is.

High bush-cranberry in pen and ink

See below to compare the two species. High bush-cranberry (Viburnum opulus) is also known as Pembina in some parts of the country.

Both bush-cranberries have edible fruit that bear a resemblance in taste to bog cranberry, but they're not true cranberries. Low bush-cranberry has the added excitement of smelling of old sweat socks when the fruits are ripe.

Mmmm. Yummy.

Low bush-cranberry in pen and ink

Not much to say here except that the vicious cross-hatching would seem to indicate that I wasn't having the best day when I did this one.

I was going to discuss the differences between low bush-cranberry (Viburnum edule) and high bush-cranberry (Viburnum opulus) --it's more than the low and high, believe it or not -- but that sounds too much like work just now.

Another sketchbook page

Yep, more sketchbook. I'm not sure if I'll bother with looking up a poem this weekend. Depends on the mood tomorrow.

This page is a detail of chokecherry leaves and unripe fruit.

If anyone's wondering why it's dated from a couple of years ago, it's because... well, because it was a couple of years ago. I didn't get a chance to do much sketching last summer. I'll be trying to correct that this year.

Silverberry in pen and ink

Another pen and ink wonder. Elaeagnus commutata, which translates as Silverberry or Wolf Willow. It's not actually a willow so I prefer the other name.

Unfortunately, it hides its fruit under its leaves (as opposed to hiding its light under a bushel) so I had to approach the thing from the underside if I wanted to get the fruit in.

And since getting the fruit in was the entire point of the doodle... well, there you go.