The cricket frogs called calmly
As if nothing unusual was happening.
I scanned the log jams close to the riverbank for turtles but saw none there.
The branches stretched out from the water offering sun baths and dryness.
A friend asked me if I knew the birds calling along the trail. "No, I said", wishing I did as I awoke to their songs all around me. Flowers bloomed all over the river- cahaba lilies, justicia. Occasionally, the slow plucking of a banjo frog. I slow to look at a flattened rough green snake partly embedded in the dirt. A young girl runs past me, an old man runs past me. I push on, surveying the sunlit river beside me. The sky is apparent above the trees and my eyes linger on it.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Cahaba River Ramble
Monday, December 19, 2011
Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver
Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Some Artists Who Like Maps
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