"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
An image of a Black and White Warbler taken this past spring. The song-birds have begun moving south now. Things have been so busy, I’ve barely had a chance to go birdwatching to watch them pass through.
“Black and White Warbler”
I have been coming to a realization lately that although it is nice to try and continue to know, understand and discover ourselves, it may be of detriment to actually try and define ourselves. We as humans love the definition. It puts a nice bow on the subject at hand and we can then go on to define the next potentially scary or perplexing item. However, if we hang a much to determinate definition on ourselves then it doesn’t leave too much room for change or growth. By definition we become somewhat of a fixed, static entity. As fond as I am of Tolkein’s Middle Earth stories, I am becoming less and less engaged in stories of black and white, good or evil. As time goes on I am finding myself far more interested in stories with characters of the in-between. One recent example is the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George Martin, but there are other better ones. Any suggestions?
“Black and White Warbler, Autumn 2012”
The Oven Bird
THERE is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
-Robert Frost-
“Ovenbird, Autumn 2012”
