Sunday, May 26, 2013

fleeting glimpse

You might see the outline of a figure in the distance
See how they move as they walk and know
Who it is who moves that way.

You might hear the sound of a voice in the next room
Hear just a few words in a phrase and know
Who it is who speaks that way.

Some people know birds that well.

You might scan all around up and down
To catch a fleeting glimpse of movement
Or hear a distinct few notes of a call or song.

You might turn towards the sound and peer
Into the vegetation into the wiggling leaves
Hoping to find the source of the sound.

We strain to see it when we do not know it.

We find the bird sometimes but sometimes
We look and look and cannot find the hidden one
Camouflaged in the canopy.

No matter that the bird sings right in front of us.
No matter that we walk left and right looking carefully.
No matter that we try watchful waiting.

Try as we may, try as we might, not this time.

baltimore oriole duet



presby iris gardens

album

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

not the end of the world


When I hear someone say
“It’s not the end of the world.”
I think of the image of time as a line
And a lifetime as a line segment.

There are so many expressions invoking images
I often get lost from the conversation
Thinking about the literal meaning of the words.
Perhaps I have a touch of autism.

Last week my Korean ESL student got frustrated
Reading a story that said the person acted
Out of frustration.   To him that made no sense.
Why not in frustration?  I understand.

When I was a boy numbers and logic made sense.
I learned new words as mathematical concepts.
Later I was confused upon hearing those same words
Holding some alternate meaning outside math.

My favorite poet as a young man was a linguist
Separating out the phonemes and morphemes
Combining them into words like atoms into molecules
While the roots of his words became roots in the ground.

Sometimes this language is foreign to my ear
And what I hear is just the intonation and rhythm.
Sometimes the letters on the page are strange characters
What the typographers call Greek.

A poem begins “Moon, cantilever of syllables”
And I see an enormous dipthong bridge
Spanning the Milky Way transporting me
Far out into the endless universe.

Monday, May 13, 2013

indian pond teaneck

album

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Saturday, May 11, 2013

now we are three

album

Friday, May 10, 2013

great oaks


While talking to a man who was clearing a path
Following the last big storm blowdown here
I heard something new to me
How the forest succession is changing.

He was lamenting the loss of the old oak trees
Saying they are the last of their kind around here.
There are so many deer in the suburban woods
Browsing the saplings there are no young trees.

Now I am looking at the trees with new eyes.
Will there be no acorns underfoot in a few years?
Forests change.  The grand chestnut trees are relics.
The elm trees are almost gone though I remember them.

I won’t be here to see this future beech forest
Without oaks.  By then no one will know it was like
Under the great oaks and graceful elms or picture a scene
 “Under the spreading chestnut tree…”

But perhaps this prediction is wrong.
If there are no acorns to feed the deer
There will be few deer to eat the oak saplings.
I think the deer will thin out as the old oaks thin out.

And then the oaks could make a comeback.
There’s a balance between eater and eaten.
And there’s another protection for the saplings
Perhaps keeping the deer away like a fence.

When a tree falls and there’s a clearing open to the sky
The prickly berry bushes thrive in a dense thicket.
The saplings can grow there safe from foragers.
I think the oak trees may be around for a long time.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Saturday, May 4, 2013