The Night Bird
The Night Bird was first released on a collection entitled Blue Sun Swing Low and the artwork is drawn from the original cover by Gail Bradshaw. That is a blue sun setting over the hills beyond the Saanich Inlet as the night bird glides into view. The red man trying to fly is me in slow motion flapping my shadow arms on a warm rock near Chivers Point at the top of Wallace Island in Trincomali Channel. For years we rowed and sailed our 14 foot wooden Penobscot around the Gulf Islands, camping out on shore at night, and one trip I took a video camera and filmed some of our adventures. The piano piece is an impromptu mash up of a Fauré prelude with some variations on Saint James Infirmary blues with added patterns here and there. I hope my fascination with kaleidoscope images ends here, but it may be that my life has become just one colourful flashback I am trying to understand through fragments and fractals.