Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian photographer and poet whose work explores the intersection of nature, memory, and place. His latest project, It’s Snowing Here on the Moon, is a visual and written narrative that captures the search for a space to nature walk in the midst of a rapidly growing town. Through evocative imagery and poetic storytelling, Barbeito reflects on the changing landscapes of urban expansion and the quiet beauty that still lingers within them.

His forthcoming book, When I Hear the Night, a collection of photos and prose poems, is set to be published by Dark Winter Press in May 2025. Known for his ability to blend the visual and the lyrical, Barbeito continues to document the natural world with a deep sense of wonder and introspection.

Thank you Brian.

It’s Snowing Here on the Moon

Brian Michael Barbeito 

—

Run around the same old town

Doesn’t mean that much to me

To mean that much to you

Neil Young

-Old Man 

 I Heard Word

Urban sprawl was taking over the town where I lived, or the outskirts rather, the places where it was great to walk the dogs and be in nature. I could even hear strange sounds of night construction, some machines like modern monsters out there in the nocturne, moving steel around.

Plus, the old trails that still existed were becoming really habituated by the new souls that accompanied the suburban dwellings. But someone at some point told me there was a large golf course that permitted dog walking in the winter months. I’d have to check that out. 

Modern Economics and Troubled Times

I went to the place, and was happy that it was so local, as this would save on gas and time. With all the kooks on the roads these days, it was taking your life in your hands as the old saying goes, to even drive.

Therefore I was also gladdened to traverse a short distance for that fact. I parked and began making my way with my canine friends down a brick path to another world that would turn out to contain its own sort of magic. 

So What’s it Really Like on the Moon?

The people and dogs I did encounter were for the most part friendly. Everyone had a similar mindset in that they were there to get exercise for the dogs, and it was an off leash  and easy-going area and atmosphere. Almost immediately in my journeys I nevertheless began to veer off path to go exploring. A lone-wolf at heart, via karmic destiny, my base-line and habitual ‘trick,’ was to go it alone. I found shortly that there was an actual river flowing through this golf course. Most of the winter it was frozen, but sometimes for higher temperatures, not. Three or four bridges and some old trees full of character added to the alluring sides of the river. 

On most days, in the latest winter especially, since there had been impossible amounts of snowfall, the grounds with its little bumps and crater-like patches, to me anyhow, evoked a feeling and sight of what it might be like walking upon the moon or a moon. More often than not it was snowing, and much of the time a wind as if from outer space sang and sometimes swirled the snow in upward circles so that it was like spirit snow, phantoms feral, or scenic spectres. 

Bridges, Chaparral and Reeds, Please

I sometimes went away from the open parts that looked like the moon and stood on the bridges watching either the ice and piled snow or the dark water flow if thawing had

announced itself if even in a patch. On the ground jutting out from the ice and snow there, on the purlieu of worlds, were beige reeds, sometimes appearing golden hued for the play of sunlight against them.

There I digested what the tarot readers, the diviners, had said, for it was far from a modicum of time I had spent listening to their counsel. But then I’d look around again as the dogs played nearby and admire the place and breathe deeply the fresh air in a soft of active meditation. 

Now that We’ve Known Each Other I Think I’ll Miss You

Now, as in other times, things are melting and the majority of the winter has been gotten through. While still allowed to go there, it is only a matter of time before they close it to ready the grounds and begin golfing season. I can see little parcels of land leaning out, parts manicured with small plants and stones previously hidden and involuntarily hibernating in lieu of the munificence of the snow in sharing itself. I’ll have to go back to the forest trails soon. It’s a mixed bag, with many moments of freedom and opportunities of landscape frames and ideas for prose poems, but the woodlands are not as ideal as some people imagine. There are some questionable people I’ve run into, vexatious souls and judgemental ones. But there is still more good than bad. I realized recently how much I’ll miss the golf course, something I never knew could be so vast and interesting, and actually have those bridges and far off areas resembling the moon. 

March is a funny month around here though. It’s never known what exactly the capricious weather might bring. Before we part ways, there might be another accumulation of snow, and I never thought I’d say so, but it would be fun for myself and the dogs to be out there in all that space at least one more time. 

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