CREW Marsh January 4, 2016

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Lehigh Acres crested caracara

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Harns Marsh January 2, 2016

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2016

After two days and nineteen hours driving the interstate

After two Mexican restaurant dinners and a free breakfast

We are resting in a hotel room in Jacksonville

And you still have the energy to play on New Year’s Eve.

Like young children we are free now to amuse ourselves

Discovering whatever fun and interesting things to do

Traveling south to a warm place to spend the winter

Where we will be active exploring nature preserves.

On this night we talk about the arbitrary caprice of the calendar

As compared to Tet or Rosh Hashanah or any other demarcation

Remembering a very good year for us doing and being together

Looking forward to revisiting favorite places and experiencing new.

I am reading about the historical process of change in language

How the English irregular verbs are getting modernized

The past tense formed with the regular verb –ed suffix

Not the vowel change that was the ancient verb structure.

The last to go are the most common verbs, lingering expressions

As we speak of ringing in the New Year, I picture large old bells

That were rung by pulling on ropes to sound the celebration

While today it is the telephone that rings to make connections.

The incoming call sound made by a cellphone isn’t really a ring

Unless you select that option for a retro jangling noise

But it is still called a ring tone, using throwback nomenclature

That phone sometime in the future will be said to have ringed.