Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Not yet leafed out, the pistache tree that feeds the birds

as reflected in the shiny blue paint of the new truck. Across the street, the everygreen pear is in full bloom. A good harbinger, coming a little after the intense yellow of acacia bloom. So spring will come, and soon.
I was thinking about Jim tonight, and remembered that he sent me this poem, after I wrote a heron haiku. I didn't know then that Jim's own "darkest winter" was held invisibly in Jim. We're still a long way from midsummer, but hey, that's the swell freedom of blogging.

Black Marsh Eclogue

Although it is midsummer,
the great blue heron
holds the darkest winter in his hunched shoulders,
those blue-turning-black clouds
rising over him
like a storm from the Pacific.

He stands alone in the black marsh,
more monument than bird.
He watches the hearts of things
and does not move or speak.

But when at last he flies,
his great wings cover the darkening sky,
and slowly,
as though praying,
he lifts,
almost motionless
as he pushes the world away.

Sam Hamill

(An eclogue (two syllables) is a short, terse, usually serious poem)--
this the the note Jim sent with the poem and I don't know if he wrote it, or if it is with the poem in one of Hamill's books.
Let's all go outside and look for birds and think about life's brevity and mysteries as carefully as we can. It is not as easy for us to push the workl away; being wingless, we have to deal with wars, past ones, present ones and those yet to come. Until we can figure THAT out. Good night.

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