Boyd Hill March 8, 2018

album

FL Botanical to Largo Preserve March 7, 2018

album

snow day

As it snows there today a foot or more in early March

We are fifteen hundred miles south of you

Living this winter in another time of life

Where no school cancellation snow days happen for us.

It has been half a year since you set up your own household

Establishing your independence, enjoying your self-reliance

And now you are taking care of us in our absence

Watering our plants and forwarding the mail.

I remember the time it snowed a blizzard on your birthday

When you were in preschool and so excited for your party

I drove around and picked up your playmate friends

Making that celebration happen despite the weather.

That day is one of countless memories that visit my thoughts

When I lie half-awake in the very early morning

Drifting in and out between past people and places

Now that there’s no alarm clock rousing me off to work.

Happily the storm brings you a gift holiday from teaching fifth grade

A chance to rest up and recover your emotional energy

For a job more complex and involved than I could manage

Needing to teach social life skills not just the subject matter.

What I can do is set down these words keeping up our tradition

Thinking you value this form of annual acknowledgement

You are a good person doing your best doing well

Making me proud how you handle life’s challenges.

I look forward next month to resuming our weekly dinners

Hearing the passionate details of conflict and resolution

Listening to the way you approach solving problems

Using your excellent people skills to work out solutions.

John Chesnut March 6, 2018

album

Phillippe to Wright March 5, 2018

album

Seaside Seabird Sanctuary March 4, 2018

album

threes and twos

We count by threes and twos these days

Alternating who cooks enough food to last

Three days for us two eating leftovers

Savoring our favorite home cooked meals.

We are living a fantasy life for now

Like what you might daydream about

When you will take it easy after you retire

Every day doing what you want to do.

For us that means being where it is warm

Outside walking the trails in a nature preserve

Discovering the endless diversity of wildlife

Especially the exuberant beauty of birds.

How delightful that feathers evolved before flight

As pure decoration designed to dazzle a mate

Before natural selection found a new use for the loveliness

Producing birds soaring and swooping to display their art.

Here it is early spring with the trees leafing out

The time for courtship and coupling for us to observe

Our favorite time of year enjoyed twice

Repeated when we move back north next month.

Sometimes I notice my age seeing my skin

Loose on my arm slackening in the way of all flesh

Knowing too well that everything is temporary

Then I lose myself in experiencing today.

Watching the ospreys incubate their eggs

In the neighborhood park across the street

Where the trumpeter swan dropped in last week

Out of nowhere not seen anywhere else around here.

Watching the night herons build nests in the laurel oak

Yellow crowns glowing in the afternoon sun

Strutting almost within reach of us on the boardwalk

Flaring feathers in the nature preserve down the street.

Watching a roseate spoonbill arrive overhead

Flying in and circling down to settle for a while

Perched preening in a tree across the pond

Back from the edge of being hunted to extinction.

And seeing the horned owlets about to fledge

And the pileated woodpeckers excavate their nest hole

And all the many species in the aviary we inhabit

Providing us every day awareness of the sweep of life.