ekphrastic literature

“Sunlight on Snow” an ekphrastic poem by Bev Gorbet

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Snow glitter rains down from cedar tree on a sunny day after a major snowfall, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Bright lit: the great cedar forest,
Cathedral dome skies bright sunlit above…
All of a fulgent blue, all of an azure glow…
Everywhere, the peace of a radiant sunlight

Pine tree with snow glitter behind in Jackson Creek Park, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Worlds of magic and a most sacred light
Bright sunlit day, bright shafts 
Through a portico of treetops high above
The trees reaching so very high,
Deep into the sheltering skies

Snow-covered Buckthorn with path through a snowy meadow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Snow decked branch and bough: gently swaying memory;
Movement into the swaying winter winds
The gentle whispers, the gentle sighs 
The treetops,
Their  song, their gentle touch, their toss, their glide

Snow dust falls in a cedar forest, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

A deepest silence, a most profound contemplation
Midst snowdrift and snowlit mists as they shift
Between icy branch and snow covered green bough

Dust of snow and cedar lights:
All the ethereal wonders of a snowy day, 
The snow blessed, lost ephemeral lands
In a full clothed beauty, snowy wonders: of sunlight, of shadow

Snow-covered shrub on a snowy day, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Oh! sacred forest, this great beauty of place
To overwhelm, to protect, to shelter…
Here, a deepest meditation, a deepest circumspection…
Snow and ice and all the wonder of a  glorious sunlit day
All the ephemeral beauty in a winter’s sunlight world.

Snow dust rains down from snow-laden cedar trees in Jackson Creek Park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Bev Gorbet is a Toronto poet and retired school teacher. She has published several poems with the Retired Teachers Organization and most recently in “Literary Connection IV: Then and Now” (In Our Words Inc., 2019), edited by Cheryl Antao Xavier.

A Late Autumn Snowfall–An Ekphrastic Poem by Bev Gorbet

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Otonabee River glints in the sun as it snows, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

An autumn’s last days, fierce snowfalls, fall lights and storm
The autumn landscape now full of wild moods,
Hints of a magic wilderness and an encircling cold,
The bitter winds, the fast falling hail:
Landscape echo and retreat

Mallards contently swim the marsh under a heavy snow, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Snow veil mists over the receiving marsh lands:
Somber cloud grays, shades of amber glow…
Mallard ducks unconcernedly paddling 
On the smooth black marsh waters
The snows above falling in majestic blizzards:
Powerful bursts of snow over treetop
And bended bough,
Moody haze lit skies high falling away
In blasts of snow and wind

Heavy snow falls in the riparian forest, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Snowy reflections over high treetop above…
Snowy days and last messages of a fading autumn’s glory:
Detritus of bronze leaf, the withered beauty of a fading goldenrod
A final sadness, autumn’s last messages, 
Haunted promises of a brilliant winter sunshine
On snowy fields, velvet days and gold

Snow flies horizontally in a fierce wind, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Now the forests bend, overwhelmed by the flying snow
Thick tumbling down, shards of ice and rain
Clouds of snow falling everywhere
Forest pathways now covered in a lucent white glow,
The shaded greens of cedar and fir picked out in a forest landscape;
The continuing deluge, wild nature’s primordial powers: 
Mad windstorm and snow drift

Sun emerges over Thompson Creek marsh after the snowstorm, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)

The still marsh waters now reflect the gray cloud, the  sky high above
All the windstorm madness, the bog detritus on the still marsh 
Now snow covered and silent, the snowfall ended
The marsh now a sacred retreat: worlds of a glorious and gentle reflection,
A tender, and radiant peace overall.

Bev Gorbet is a Toronto poet and retired school teacher. She has published several poems with the Retired Teachers Organization and most recently in “Literary Connection IV: Then and Now” (In Our Words Inc., 2019), edited by Cheryl Antao Xavier.

Thompson Creek marsh after a first snow in late autumn, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu revels in a snowstorm in Ontario (photo by Merridy Cox)

“The Forested Sanctuary” by Bev Gorbet

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Stream runs through cedar poplar forest in the rain, Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)

Oh! great mysterium:
Great forested sanctuary into the heart of being
Oh! to walk pensive, in solitude into the center
Of a cedar forest, worlds all russet and green,
Branch and bough, rain swept landscapes
The high treetops, far whisper and echo…
The great winds in high flight high above…
Songs to pierce the sullen skies,
Melodies of joy and of a deepest longing…

Cedars and poplars in a morning mist, Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Songs of immortality, worlds full aflame,
Mystic cathedrals and dawn memory,
Haze and gray day, silver sky, silver cloud
Rain downfall and mist…
Leaf, branch and bough, the wind and the rain
The bending and wind tossed land

Mist hangs over Trent Canal, Trent Forest Sanctuary, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

The spring scents, spring grasses and nearby stream;
Rivulet and rhapsodic song,
The holy silences, the rain, fall, hiss and far echo…
Cedar forest cathedrals, branches overspread,
Red winged blackbird, soaring alone high above,
High into the receiving dome of haze and sky
Free swoop and whispering forest airs

White birch in Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)

The far meditation:
Sacred journey into a holy wilderness:
Forested worlds beyond time…

Cedar root among ferns and moss in a light mist, Trent Nature Sanctuary (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Forested worlds of an existential beauty,
Great moss silences, tree root and bough…
Great worlds of hope and the tenebrous shadow
Of a rain swept day…
Holy encounters: the great mysterium
Sacred worlds beyond still time…

BEV GORBET
Moss and lichen cover an old cedar log, Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Tinder polypore fungus on white birch, Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Moss on a log in Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Cedar boardwalk in a misty rain, Trent Nature Sanctuary, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

To the Mystic Forest by Bev Gorbet–an Ekphrastic Poem

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Path birch PPP

Trail through mixed birch-pine forest at Petroglyph Park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Since moving temporarily to Peterborough during COVID-19, I have been on an adventure with Nature in the Kawartha region, north of Toronto. The region contains a chain of lakes that form the upper watershed of the Trent River; the lakes are situated on the boundary between the Paleozoic limestone region of the Golden Horseshoe and the Precambrian granite Canadian Shield of northern and central Ontario.

I’ve explored several local parks and lakes with wonderful swamp cedar on the Otonabee River and Jackson Creek and uphill beech-maple forest in the Trent Nature Sanctuary.

Farther afield, I wandered through the pine forests of Petroglyph Park, north of Peterborough, with its intriguing meromictic McGinnis Lake.

When I shared some of my Petroglyph Park photos with Toronto poet and friend Bev Gorbet, she was inspired to write this poem. I am overjoyed to share her ekphrastic poem with you here:

 

Path pine forest wide PPP

Trail through pine forest, Petroglyph Park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

To the Mystic Forest: Reflections on Natural Beauty

Forests of the mind, wild forests of the heart…
The ethereal sounds: windstorm and echo
On a spring day…
The wind’s fierce flight through bended bough,
Through swaying treetop

High high above, the windswept call, the cry,
All the beauty in a wilderness forest…
The whispering grasses, below,
Song all bend, all flow in a cathedral clearing…

Trillium aging white

Aging white trillium, Petroglyph Park, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)

Radiant beams, sunlight and shadow peppering
The moving boughs overhead…
Azure and lavender, sky-swept cloud
And mystic glow…

Oh! great forests of the mind,
Great forest of the heart…
A deepest beauty along an existential meridian:
The heart passionately centred, deeply into reflection:
Haunted days and alone

Wind call and cry, whisper and sigh
Great wilderness lands, wide forested plains
All the wondrous beauty, all the holy mystery:
Windswept, wind-tossed skies, the great forests
Mystery glorious, mystic days beyond time.

Bev Gorbet, June 2020

 

BevGorbetBev Gorbet is a Toronto poet and retired school teacher. She has published several poems with the Retired Teachers Organization and most recently in “Literary Connection IV: Then and Now” (In Our Words Inc., 2019), edited by Cheryl Antao Xavier.

 

 

 

 

 

Path Pine forest drybrush PPP

Petroglyph Park pine forest trail (artwork by Nina Munteanu)

 

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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.