a walk in the woods and a tour of the mine

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post ice age fast track

The end of the last ice age
The beginning of agriculture and cities
On the fast track to 10 billion humans
Start everything 12,000 years ago.

All the eons of geological time
All the millions of years of evolution
But just 2 million years of homo genus ancestors
And just 200,000 years of homo sapiens.

Perhaps 30 million people alive then on earth
Perhaps all descended from 50 people
Our genetics so much the same in all of us
Becoming farmers and multiplying to 300 million.

200 years ago is a blink in time
Current events almost modern times
So suddenly the industrial revolution
Dominates all life on this planet.

More people alive today
Than all the people dead and gone.
More stuff manufactured in my lifetime
Than everything made by everyone before.

So many species decimated going extinct
The impact of human exploitation
The inexorable global warming catastrophe
The legacy we leave to our children.

In the darkest hour the contradictions rule
The dialectic engenders new ideas new struggles
The impossible inconceivable change happens
The old order collapses as a new system emerges.

back deck flowers from seed

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willowwood garden

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good looking people

Riding the bike path along the Saddle River,
Looking at the good looking people there,
We go for exercise and health.
I enjoy being with my companion.

Making eye contact as we pass,
Some look back and smile or say hello.
Around us the light in the sky and on the water.
I see egrets, woodchucks, rabbits and a deer.

Musing about the Red Queen hypothesis as the pedals turn,
Thinking about Ridley’s take on the evolution of sex.
Noticing how I notice the cute young women,
Taking them in from a distance.

Is my attention determined by my genes?
Is this my male brain scanning for mates?
I am much too old for this.
I was never much for that.

She who rides with me sees their beauty, too,
Admiring their youthful form and energy.
Flirting and pairing or serene by themselves,
They are not interested in us.

noise filter

If you walk in the woods as I do
Not far from an urban center
The human noise backdrop is always there
Nearby traffic and planes overhead.

If you are an older person as I am
Sounds do not fully separate.
The ability to selectively tune out
Some sounds from other sounds

Limits information
Decides some is noise to be ignored
Like static on a radio or snow
On an old time airwave TV show.

I hear everything commingled.
Nothing is filtered out.
There is no illusion about these woods
Where I am seeking the natural world.

What an auditory delight it was
Walking in the woods on vacation
Hearing the background silence
Amplify our footsteps.

rideau canal region

Arrival at cottage on Whitefish Lake near Seeleys Bay Whitefish Lake morning, Rock Dunder hike, Jones Falls dam and locks Cataraqui Rail Trail to Chaffeys Lock, Chaffeys Lock, Eglin, Gananoque, Whitefish Chaffeys Lock Tender interview Charleston Lake, Delta Whitefish Lane bike ride

Landon Bay, Eglin Stanley Cup, Cataraqui Trail to Forfar daddy longlegs dance Frontenac Park Cataraqui Trail to Portland, Westport, Whitefish

happy surprise

Early morning looking out across Whitefish Lake
Drinking my coffee to start my vacation day
One boat with fishermen casting about drifts by
Two kayaks paddle past going the other way.

The lake is quiet.
No motors, no wake.
Now I hear the call of the loon
Reaching across the lake.

Then I see the pair flying past
Big swimmer feet trailing behind
Calling so distinctively, a sound
I have not heard since childhood.

When we go out rowing around
We see them in the distance.
Binoculars confirm the neck ring
Before they dive and swim away.

Just now three popped up out there
In the middle of the lake
Though the power boats have arrived
Traveling down from Jones Falls locks.

They keep their distance
But they keep on living here
No matter that the engines roar
And water skiers rule the weekend afternoon.

These special birds are nearly gone
Chased from the New England lakes
Perhaps because their nests get drowned
In the wake of all the motorboats.

Perhaps it is the acid rain in New England
Killing the fish to cause their decline.
Why do these loons survive here in Ontario?
Such a happy surprise for me to find.

star bright

On a clear moonless night in Canada
Looking north out over Whitefish Lake
The stars light up the dark silent sky.
There are no pictures to show you this.

The north star in the center so bright,
The very big big dipper swinging round it
Marking the hours passing
Counterclockwise, handle for a hand.

Around midnight I stand on the dock
Looking to the east along the shore
There’s the milky way millions of stars
Arching over angled like the earth’s angle.

Let me fix these things in my memory.
Next week I return to the noise and lights.
The city that never sleeps never sees these stars.
Let me remember the universe is out there.

loon cove whitefish lake

distant nighttime calls

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whitefish lake row around

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