At Sturgeon Bay, grasses cast shadows

 

Went with the Petoskey Regional Audubon Society to the wild and beautiful Sturgeon Bay in Wilderness State Park. The first part was on a trail through forest that went up hill and down dale. We didn't really see many birds (spring is better for birding here) but it was a beautiful day and a longer walk that I am used to. I took a different camera and found out the that the autofocus is not as good as what I am used to on the small Lumix. There were also many autumn wildflowers in bloom on the beach.

Like these; aren't they sweet? Don't ask me the name yet, because I was usually so far behind the rest of them, that I didn't get the benefit of the flower-book ladies who were naming them for us.
And here is a view of the Bay.

I had a glorious time and now go to bed early.  Good night!

Foretaste of Winter

Did I surprise you? When I get back to my ducks (these were waiting for a cracked corn handout last January) I will have to leave behind my glorious porch display of potted everything. A local grocery store has been tempting me with just one or two pots among the chrysanthemums in front of the store. I was so pleased with the variety of the first one, that if they have another one I get it it almost every time I go. I have a fantasy that there is a lunatic somewhere in a greenhouse just sticking plants in and fertilizing them like crazy. They are blowsy and almost bursting from the pots. Some of the plants are ivy geraniums, fibrous begonias in white, pink and red, lantana, white snapdragons, a tiny white pointed flower I do not know, angel-wing begonia, and a very rich wine-colored plant with maple shaped leaves. All are well grown, and I can only call them juicy. I am made happy every time I look at them. I long for my own greenhouse!

That was a tangent I didn't know I'd take or make. Idiom? And I just went out and took some iPhone snaps of these flowers under the porch light. Not bad, considering it is night.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Opera Radio is playing once again the slightly frenetic Marriage of Figaro. This pretty music always makes me feel as if I were too sedentary. . . or they were too frantic.

Meanwhile back at the Poetry Ranch: tonight's poem is by the German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Mark Anderson, and has BOTH music and flowers.

ARIA 1

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses

thorns illuminate the night. And the thunder

of a thousand leaves, once so quiet on the bushes,

is right at our heels.

Wherever the roses' fire is put out,

rain washes us into the river. Oh, distant night!

Yet a leaf that touched us now floats on the waves,

following us to the sea.

From The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, edited by J. D. McClatchy, Vintage Books, 1996, page 124.

Curves and Straight lines

 

This was at the beginning of the summer now coming swiftly to an end. The vertical lines are mostly bracken fronds reaching for the light. Cranes often assume postures that remind me of ballet. In this case, the delicate posture of the dainty legs, the elegant curve of the neck, and the fluffy feathers, reminiscent of Swan Lake. There is even a tiny tutu-like bit of foliage at the top of the legs. Listen, can you hear a flute, a cello and a viola?

Looking for something else, I found Geoffrey Hill in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd edition. One thing I like about Geoffrey Hill is that he is not afraid of history or vocabulary. On the evidence of the works in this anthology, he is not afraid of almost anything arcane.! His poetry has a ringing sonority that I like. And the Norton gives almost too many footnotes, so the ancient British history is not the problem it might be.

This is part of a longer poem with an off-putting title: An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England.

9. The Laurel Axe

Autumn resumes the land, ruffles the woods

with smoky wings, entangles them. Trees shine
out from their leaves, rocks mildew to moss-green;
the avenues are spread with brittle floods.

Platonic England, house of solitudes,
rests in its laurels and its injured stone,
replete with complex fortunes that are gone,
beset by dynasties of moods and clouds.

It stands, as though at ease with its own world,
the mannerly extortions, languid praise,
all that devotion long since bought and sold,

the rooms of cedar and soft-thudding baize,
tremulous boudoirs where the crystals kissed
in cabinets of amethyst and frost.

Geoffrey Hill, born 1932.

Welcome to September!

The poem that is too overdone--is it like the faked-up sunrise?

 

Well, sure, I stitched several shots together and then I fiddled with it some more, but it WAS a great sunrise this morning. Then S got up and made the packet of Chocolate Chip pancake mix that we bought for grandkids to munch up. Since we never got to use it while they were here, we had to munch it ourselves. Luckily the chips didn't stay stirred up and he got most of them. Coz I really didn't think that the chocolate flavor went well with the maple syrup.

And tomorrow is Sunday, with no appointments! Scott read me today (from a newspaper) that we are the only wealthy country that does not mandate paid vacation time for workers. Figures. Still, it is shocking to think about. I cannot imagine that such a mandate could ever be put into place now, but it would definitely enrich peoples' lives, and create more jobs. The money spent in leisure travel and such would improve the economy. The same article mentioned a study that found that people who worked closer to 11-hour days were much more likely to suffer from significant depression that the 8-hour folks. Surprising???

The GEPPO came today, it's the newsletter study publication of my haiku society. I highly recommend you click the link and join up if you have even the slightest interest in haiku. I have belonged to this group for more than thirty years now, and my life has been enriched again and again, by the people and the interesting and varied activities. The person who introduced me to the group is writing a series of articles in GEPPO sharing her experience and knowledge about writing the best, deepest, freshest, haiku you can. The series is called "Zigzag of the Dragonfly" In this installment, she reemphasized the importance of writing every day. Since haiku are brief and made of quick perceptions, almost anyone can squeeze out a few minutes for this. Naturally, this is something I have meant to do; I've just never done it. I write on nature walks, at meetings, and on other occasions, but I NEED TO WORK ON THIS EVERY DAY! Not to beat myself up about it (which doesn't work) but I have proved that I can write every day by doing this blog, so this is a needed next step.
Today, instead, I did the laundry, emptied the dishwasher, and set up my replacement bird feeder. After I hung it out, I sat on my balcony for about half an hour just enjoying the late afternoon (I could have written haiku!) and the female hairy woodpecker kept flying to the balcony (where she perches while she checks out the safety of the area) seeing me, and not landing on the railing, and then sitting on the dog-yard fence and cheeping sharply. Then a few  minutes later, she would repeat the whole performance. I am pretty sure the woodpeckers, all three kinds, will like the feeder, made of cedar, like the old rotten one, and with easy-to-reach suet holders. With better, dry seeds (the old one leaked) I also hope to attract some chickadees, who have been very scarce this year. We shall see-- it's been an odd year.

Ans here's a haiku about that by the kingpin of haiku: BASHO!

Not grown to a butterfly
this late in autumn
a caterpillar

From Basho and His Interpreters; selected Hokku with sommentary by Makoto Ueda,
Stanford University Press, 1991. Page 271.

Turkey Wings in the Morning Meadow

 

This was a nice surprise about 8:30 this morning! The Samsung battery went dead when I fired up the long lens, so I had to catch this with the adored Lumix pocketable beauty, I think there were nine of them, two adults and seven children.  Set me up pretty well for the day. A couple of days of rain have made the meadow green up nicely.

Poetry news tonight is the recent death of Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet and Nobel Prize recipient, who was not as old as I am. So another great one has left us.


Here is the last part of 

 Keeping Going by Seamus Heaney

             ^^^^^

My dear brother, you have good stamina.
You stay on where it happens. Your big tractor
Pulls up at the Diamond, you wave at people,
You shout and laugh about the revs, you keep
old roads open by driving on the new ones.
You called the piper's sporrans whitewash brushes
And then dressed up and marched us through the kitchen,
But you cannot make the dead walk or right wrong.
I see you at the end of your tether sometimes,
In the milking parlour, holding yourself up
Between two cows until your turn goes past,
Then coming to in the smell of dung again
And wondering, is this all? As it was
In the beginning, is now and shall be?
Then rubbing your eyes and seeing our old brush
Up on the byre door, and keeping going.

Brunch in Brutus, where there are a lot of dead things on the walls

Do you approve of taxidermy? A couple of years ago when I was eating the cherry chicken salad (divine) the man at the next table over waws having trouble devoting attention to HIS meal because of the questions his kid was asking him about the taxidermied fish, fowl and mammals here. The kid could smell the DEATH behind it all, and he wasn't about to quiet down.

Outside of a natural history museum, I have never seen the like. Here's another view, which doesn't even include ALL the dead things:

There is even a fish head on a plaque swimming toward you with his mouth wide open! I have to admit I look at them all with interest and surprise when I am there

Above the grill (a peek shows at the left) where two manly guys in baseball caps fry meaty treats, is a

NO HUNTING
NO FIREARMS

metal sign with three bullet holes in it. Since I have just been involved in creating a No Hunting Nature Preserve, I am clearly in another camp. And I like to think I am more willing to tolerate their camp (AMERICA!) than they are to tolerate mine.

Anyway, about taxidermy, what do you think?? I know this perhaps has nothing to do with poetry.

Metal sign:

EVERYTHING
HAS TO DO
WITH POETRY!

(Don't put any bullet holes in it . . . . )   Good night!

Logan Paints

During the grandchild visit, we had several outstanding painting sessions. I have chosen Logan's painting to show you because of his color sense and the joyous freedom of his watercolor washes. (He won't be three until October.)
[Recommendation: I remember Prang watercolors in the black metal box from my childhood. They were always more satisfying to use than other kid paints, with juicy color that releases easily without scrubbing the paint cake. Now they come in extra colors, too (Logan was using the box with the two purples) and are still great paints! I saw them at Walmart just the other day with the school supplies. Just throw away the brush that comes in the now-plastic box, and substitute one of the cheaper well-formed synthetic brushes, one that has a little snap. A couple of the girls preferred a brush with a slanted chisel shape; I was surprised that they noticed!]

I feel autumn coming on and I am unprepared to leave my woodlands. The hibiscus beside the house is a riot of giant blossoms. The veronica looks great, too, and makes a beautiful well-organized shape over a long blooming season. Here is a something that Stanley Kunitz wrote about his garden:

THE ROUND

Light splashed this morning

on the shell-pink anemones

swaying on their tall stems;

down blue-spiked veronica

light flowed in rivulets

over the humps of the honeybees; 

this morning I saw light kiss

the silk of the roses

in their second flowering,

my late bloomers

flushed with their brandy.

A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,

so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,

so I am sitting in semi-dark

hunched over my desk

with nothing for a view 

to tempt me

but a bloated compost heap,

steamy old stinkpile,

under my window;

I pick my notebook up

and I start to read aloud

the still-wet words I scribbled

on the blotted page:

"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait until tomorrow

when a new life begins for me,

as it does each day,

as it does each day.

from Next-to-Last Things; new poems and essays by Stanley Kunitz; 

The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985. Page 17.

What will you be doing tomorrow? I don't have any definite plans.