The Magic Mountain

(The Boardwalk at Toronto’s Beaches by William
Kurelek, 1927-1977, Canadian artist and writer)

Soon, the happy day will come when, once again, we’ll cast off our winter jackets and coats and hats and scarves and gloves and boots, and raise our faces to the warm sun.

from A MAGIC MOUNTAIN

Sultry Octobers, cool Julys, trees blossom in February.
Here the nuptial flight of hummingbirds does not forecast spring.
Only the faithful maple sheds its leaves every year.
For no reason, its ancestors simply learned it that way.

~ Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), Polish poet, essayist, and translator, and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature