For weeks they came daily; grackles and vultures swarming in plagues and kettles descending to take, devour claimed food. A scold of jays bitching from leafless trees did nothing to deflect or deter the feedings.
Now they are gone; the migrant portions of their species; the uneasy, the unsettled, the searchers. For days by my windows I stood entranced, aching to leave, to gorge; imploring them to take me along to soar.
Soybean rows paved the fields in tan shades heralding by their dryness a nearing harvest; a crop, a cycle, a promise of a fulfillment. Lean, overalled, old man paces his fields; squatting, testing multiple plants’ readiness. A taciturn self can’t hide the bliss of Harvest.
A seventeen-year-old boy has harvested, with, according to companions, “extreme happiness,” a young, rare albino antelope. Ask about the hunt, the harvester said, “I‘m was so happy! I couldn’t git a breath!” Culls blood runs thick-red over white hair.
“News! Breaking news! News just for you! An illicit harvesting may have just occurred! Apparently, the Harvester did not issue any notifications prior to this culling and states his intent was ‘totally eradicate, not mere persecution, of those sordid, ethic beast!’”.
with the flow’s blasting bellow of life heard only
mutely by us, whispering under our constant din
of rants, proclamations and squeals of whiny ills.
As the river scrounges, ravishing, stealing
fish cavern walls from beneath its own banks
that hinder the flow it knows no purpose only
the god of movement’s flood. Stopping is death.
The mother oak by strength and massive reach
commands her hill only by chance and entrée
by tenacious grasp of Gaia’s breast sucking
the flow of mother’s milk. Her mammoth face
in breeze sings praise. The flow, not by beat,
but by constancy plays the melody of her song.
This is a slightly revised version of a poem originally posted in October 2012. I am slowly adding photos to each old post and, in a sense, reliving past memories and experiences; some sweet, some not so much.
Drenching us in golden sheets of birthing scents
Gaia rustles us awake, aware to lift our heads
and sniff her tactile sky of soothing intoxicates.
We close our smiling eyes, caressing the moment.
Kakia too does lift her nose to sniff, but fearing
being seen, quickly jerks her head away to hide
that twinge of delight she so distains and denies;
her repressed smile contorts her face in pain.
But Gaia sees all; even those flickers of Hope on
Kakia's face and ours before we try to cast them aside;
to be buried in our vaults of need and greed.
All allures could not blanch todays golden sheets.
I Love Dirt! Even when poor, bland, dusty gray, malnourished with no visible creatures crawling, it is striving, maneuvering, clawing for sustenance which we humanoids doltishly claim---and destroy as ours in our ignorance of life's cycles and needs.
Dirt life will survive. Microbes are the living flow with an innate Atlas persistence stronger than ours, a will to live, to build by devouring---then sharing a bite here, a bite there, yielding a crunch to savor for them and for us; a taste of hope on craving lips.
A persistence of billions of living, moving lives flow unseen by our minds and eyes, self-duped to cherish only ourselves, not Archaea, Bacteria, Fungi, Virus, Protists or any of those "creepy nasty things" which are our true Creators, Sustainers and only Hope.
Redbird on waxleaf privet branch calls
as he has a billion times past; enticing.
Cheer--cheer--cheer--pretty--pretty
we mimic, but what is he really saying;
mere yakking, indoctrination, concert
or berating, teasing, making fun of me
as I sit in my closed windowed-box
feeling belittled for my lack of a song?
Swaying leaves, twitching penumbra,
cast by light through my window, dance
upon my dull blue wall to an ancient
choral refrain. Even leaf-light has a song!
What is my song? I don't know the words,
the rhythm, the rhyme, the point of worth.
Was the first song a mere utterance of awe;
wonderment in the presence of sunlight.
"Ah! Ah!" will be my song! I sing to the leaves
and they freeze for just an instant to listen.
Then, crackling into brilliant light slivers,
they resume their own soft, dancing song.
I saw an eagle today; not on the nest web-cam
I check daily now, but soaring an invisible draft,
circling our neighborhood, rising, tipping down,
gliding to a near red oak limb revealing in glinting
light unique white “bald” head, tail and demeanor.
With apt aplomb he dismissed two raucous crow's
rantings as they stomped and strutted near limbs.
Three swipes of his yellow, hooked beak against
his supporting limb and the cursing duo quickly
took note, lifting, darting west “as the crow flies”
leaving only me and Fuzz to stare; bear witness.
Ditch-stink charmed Fuzz; I was in awe alone.
Did eagle give me a nod as he glanced my way,
arching huge wings for a forward, lifting jump,
fanning white, tail-feathers in silent ascension?
It seemed to me, there was a mutual greeting;
respect hoped for, valued, but not demanded.
I would have given a salute if I did such things.
We have hope; faith in ultimate good we clutch
as a faultless anthem, sang softly, only in sky.
afterstanza:
Now, another year has flown passed that red oak
and I still check out that empty January grey limb.
Awe has waned, Fuzz limps and a question remains,
only now acknowledged, a yellow beak ripping me:
Are there really only Predators and Prey and which....
Forty-odd years, a smidge of time to fungi;
its hidden place and past just now revealed:
a gentle sinking of soil, a couple feet across,
and just overnight a magical cluster has risen.
From the depression, Armillaria tabescens
ascends in pale ochres and soft red-browns,
honey mushrooms, to seek and tease light,
and us, for two or three days at most before
melting back to a bioluminescence world
and the long forgotten, nourishing stump
devoured and reincarnated in their galaxy
of patient life and humming green light.
To this day, some 40-odd years past,
still I can recall that instant of offense:
a negative taken to a shop for enlargement
and some clueless dudes’ snide comment,
“There’s a lots of green in that shot man!”
I probably blushed offering no defense.
The photo; my son hop-splashing across
shallow, cold rock gurgling Holly Creek
in glee, startled water and he, frozen blurs
of joyous motion deemed forever known.
Suspended trees' and banks' radiant greens
swaddling him in infinite hues of caring.
Is there such a thing as too much green;
over-abundant life? Are there cravings for
hard-gray walls, rarefied and songless air,
worlds existing in a mirrored box of self?
Slap! “Little mosquito shit!” I wince as he
takes a sip of me into eternal green time.
Belated Words 