John Chesnut March 6, 2018

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Phillippe to Wright March 5, 2018

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Seaside Seabird Sanctuary March 4, 2018

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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.