Over the Bruce Peninsula (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.) SOLD!

26 May found me heading west, high above my favorite part of Ontario - the Bruce Peninsula.  There, to my delight, lies the Bruce - like a living map of itself, as familiar to me as the back of my hand.  I can even see the tiny sliver of white that is the ferry docked in Little Tub Harbour at the tip of the peninsula.  Cove Island stretches out beyond the tip, and the other islands are there too.  I name each of them like picking out tiny familiar faces in a group photo.

Manitoulin Island lies in the distance, with a beautiful cloud formation stretching along the northern shore of Lake Huron.  I can see the slight curvature of the earth, and the setting sun makes a coppery sheen on the water far below and to the west, under the nose of the jet. Thin scarves of cloud stream past not far below us, and as we fly farther west, thick carpets of crenulated cloud are brushed with rosy light.  Where they are torn the shadowy landscape can be seen far below, with lakes and rivers dully reflecting the darkening sky as we fly on in perpetual sunlight, chasing the westering sun.

I write in my journal that there should be someone assigned on every daytime flight to write continuous poetry about the land and water and cloud formations.  When we took off from Toronto, our jet-shaped shadow leapt across the highways and buildings like a giant grasshopper, diminishing rapidly to the size of a dragonfly and then we tilted and turned and the horizon dropped like the edge of a tipping bowl.  Trucks became dinky toys and the huge round mouth of the fuselage behind my window seemed ready to engulf the whole miniaturizing world.

It will still be only just dusk when we descend on Calgary, my parents there from Westbank, British Columbia, to meet me and drive me in their motorhome to celebrate the birthday of my favorite aunt in Yorkton, Saskatchewan.