I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
Yomp yomp yomp yomp! Yum!
Fine feast for fast flying friend
of all who feed me!
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) 2020 TJ Radcliffe
I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
Waiting in silence
Patient, patient, then in flight!
Swooping through the trees.
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
Now tell me the truth:
Aren’t I what you’ve waited for?
Bright elegant bird.
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) 2020 TJ Radcliffe
I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
To you I look swift
darting through the winter air.
To my eyes I’m slow.
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) TJ Radcliffe
I started doing a fun series of birds in December. I plan to post one per day for the “Twelve Days of Christmas” with a short poem from Tom for each. Hope you enjoy!
“Fly south!” they all said.
But who would miss the beauty
of the snowy days?
Image (c) 2020 Hilary Farmer
Poem (c) 2020 TJ Radcliffe
Experimental! I have tried doing oil painting mandalas before but this is larger and so I could include more detail …maybe too much detail! There is an obvious floral theme but if you look closer, there are birds all around the outside pointing towards the centre.
Tom’s take on this one inspired the title of the piece.
Birds in camouflage abound
within the bride’s high-flung bouquet
tumbling far above the ground
sent in joy upon its way
toward the waiting hands of all
who stand on toes and reach up tall
to grasp the prize of prizes now,
the talisman that tells them how
their turn is next in love. It bursts
asunder with a flock of birds
that spin in brightly coloured herds
above the crowd now in reverse.
Yet she who’s steadfast, true, and bold
still stands to catch the flower’s hold.
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
Have I mentioned it’s been hot here? I continue to have a rather tropical inspiration permeate my work!
Here is a magical poem from Tom …a riff on T.S. Elliot’s “Usk”.
Do not step and break the branch
where snakes slip soft
on forest floor
bright birds dip beaks but not too deep
seeking wisdom
asking more
of ancient mysteries that dwell
down the Amazon
a dell
contains the secret
in grey air
a high safe nest
a serpent’s lair
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
A bright and tropical feeling piece I painted when it was really too hot to be in the studio! I guess that’s why it turned out like this 😀
Tom saw things and then wrote this magical poem!
Beneath this cloak of many colours
beats a heart of fire and flight
rising up it flits and flutters
through the forest of the night
spreading wings of beauty wild
to soar above the dull and mild
turning past the falcon’s gyre
riding winds of pure desire
across the sunlit lands below
where lakes and streams trace out the ways
of humans passing mundane days
from dawn until the gloaming’s glow.
On flies the phoenix through the air
Above a world all unaware.
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
I had so much fun painting the first “Crow and blooms” that I decided to do another! An incredible burst of rhododendrons is gracing the neighbourhood so they form the backdrop for this crow.
Tom wrote a curious and thought-provoking poem for this crow!
I think perhaps you have assumed
too much about the world at large
so look upon the blousing blooms
and tell yourself, “I am in charge
of everything I can control
and nothing else: the dice may roll
and come up seven, eight, or two
and with that truth I’ve naught to do.”
But when the dice are finally done
then how I ride the winds of chance
or bide my time upon this branch
will be my choice, for lost or won.
For though the wind blows where it might
I will yet rule my turn of flight.
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
Painted in spring colours! I saw some of these bushtits – amazingly tiny birds – late last fall and I think they’re back! Spring comes early here in Vancouver and proceeds at a very decorous pace. Not at all what I have been used to in Montreal where it sometimes seems that spring lasts just one day sometime in May and it’s straight on to summer!
Here’s Tom’s freshly written poem!
Sheltered by the leafy swirl
of berries, buds, and blossoms
bushtits bounce and preen and swirl
among the branches. Awesome
ingenuity is there
in their perfect form,
flitting thither, without care
before the world is born
image (c) 2018 Hilary Farmer
poem (c) 2018 TJ Radcliffe
Green Tea Doodles 