Nearly one-third of the wild birds in the United States and Canada have vanished since 1970, a staggering loss that suggests the very fabric of North America’s ecosystem is unraveling. –The New York Times (September 19, 2019)
As the world’s cities teem with children—flooding our concrete terrains with shouts and signs—as the younglings balance scribbled Earths above their heads, stand in unseasonal rain or blistering sun,
the birds quietly lessen themselves among the grasslands. No longer a chorus but a lonely, indicating trill: Eastern meadowlark, wood thrush, indigo bunting— their voices ghosts in the chemical landscape of crops.
Red-winged blackbirds veer beyond the veil. Orioles and swallows, the horned lark and the jay. Color drains from our common home so gradually, we convince ourselves it has always been gray.
Little hollow-boned dinosaurs, you who survived the last extinction, whose variety has obsessed scientific minds, whose bodies in the air compel our own bodies to spread and yearn— how we have failed you.
The grackles are right to scold us, as they feast on our garbage and genetically-modified corn. Our children flock into the streets with voices raised, their anger a grim substitute for song.
3.25 miles 43rd ave, north/tunnel of trees/welcoming oaks/oak savanna/edmund, north/7 Oaks 49 degrees
Hooray for wonderful runs! Sunny, warm enough for shorts, clear trails, welcoming oaks, robins who sound like they’re singing “hurry up hurry up hurry up.” Ran on the trail but don’t remember looking at the river; too busy looking out for other people. After reading an article about “The Warbler Wave” at 7 Oaks, decided to end my run there and listen. According to local bird expert Dave Zumeta (I have his Birds of the Mississippi Guide pdf), mid-May is a great time to see/hear warblers as they migrate south, and 7 Oaks is the best place to do it:
Warblers are Zumeta’s favorite birds, bar none. He not only knows the subtleties of their markings, but can also recognize their songs. His favorite place to watch for warblers isn’t Costa Rica or the Greater Antilles Islands. It’s a sinkhole on 34th St. and 47th Ave. just a stone’s throw from his house. He said, “Seven Oaks Park is the reason we moved where we did. I think it’s one of the best places to bird watch anywhere – and it’s a warbler magnet.”
Wow, I love where I live! Here’s the recording I took as I stood on the edge of the sinkhole:
May 7th, birds at 7 Oaks
I have loved Marie Howe ever since I read one of her amazing poem from What the Living Do and listened to her On Being interview. Such beautiful words! Here’s one that features a bird:
From Nowhere/ Marie Howe
I think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes
unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring. Listen, a day comes, when you say what all winter
I’ve been meaning to ask, and a crack booms and echoes where ice had seemed solid, scattering ducks
and scaring us half to death. In Vermont, you dreamed from the crown of a hill and across a ravine
you saw lights so familiar they might have been ours shining back from the future.
And waking, you walked there, to the real place, and when you saw only trees, come back bleak
with a foreknowledge we have both come to believe in. But this morning, a kind day has descended, from nowhere,
and making coffee in the usual way, measuring grounds with the wooden spoon, I remembered,
this is how things happen, cup by cup, familiar gesture after gesture, what else can we know of safety
or of fruitfulness? We walk with mincing steps within a thaw as slow as February, wading through currents
that surprise us with their sudden warmth. Remember, last week you woke still whistling for a bird
that had miraculously escaped its cage, and look, today, a swallow has come to settle behind this rented rain gutter,
gripping a twig twice his size in his beak, staggering under its weight, so delicately, so precariously it seems
from here, holding all he knows of hope in his mouth.
I love the idea of our lives as thawing lakes in a bewildering spring, and the kind day descending and things happening cup by cup, gesture by gesture, and the surprise of sudden warmth, and the delicate, staggering bird. The line about the bird reminds me of Ada Limón’s interview on VS:
Ada Limón: Yeah. I think, for me, there are a couple of new poems I’ve been working on. One of them, just recently, where I saw a beautiful kestrel that was on a really small branch. And I kept sort of loving this image of a heavier bird being held up by a small branch, right. And I kept thinking, I’ve got to do something with this, I’ve got to do something with this. And then, really, towards the end of the poem, I realized, like, I want this image to somehow tell me that as the branch, I can bear more, and I can bear a lot. And as the bird, I can balance on barely, you know, on something that’s barely there. And yet, in the poem, I recognize that it’s not telling me that, right. That that’s actually—all it is is a bird doing its thing, landing where it needs to land. And, you know, I want to look at those lessons. But I also need to pull back and think, okay, maybe it’s just a noticing, and that’s what my job was. And not always turning it into a … fable, you know. (LAUGHS) Or an idea that will somehow rescue the speaker. And in this case, you know, the speaker being me.
Franny Choi: Yeah, that helps me totally see what you mean when you say, allow the animal to be an animal alongside us as animals. Like To just like, be with them in an environment together, rather than being a colonizer like, be like, th, like, how is this tree useful for me? How is this bird useful? What can I -what can I make it for?
It’s interesting how these images of birds are opposites: Limón’s is too big for the branch, Howe’s is too small for the twig, but both are about the too-muchness of life—the world’s weight, too much for our small branched bodies, and hope’s sudden and unexpected appearance, almost too much to bear.
May 6/WALK
A break from running today. Took Delia on 2 walks instead, one just me, the other with STA and RJP. One down by the ravine, the other in the grass between the river road and Edmund.
Starlings/ Maggie Smith from Goldenrod
The starlings choose one piece of sky above the river and pour themselves in. Like a thousand arrows pointing in unison one way, then another. That bit of blue doesn’t belong to them, and they don’t belong to the sky, or to the earth. Isn’t that what you’ve been taught–nothing is ours? Haven’t you learned to keep the loosest possible hold? The small portion of sky boils with birds. Near the river’s edge, one birch has a knot so much like an eye, you think it sees you. But of course it doesn’t.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen starlings in person. I checked my bird list and they do live in the Mississippi Gorge. Maybe someday I’ll see them? Anyway, I picked this poem because it uses two interesting bits of information that I’ve wanted to use in a poem ever since I found out about them: 1. a boil of birds and 2. the tree with eyes.
a boil of birds
On March 9th, 2020, one day before I got my first of many sinus infections and just days before the pandemic became real in Minnesota, I went for a walk and noticed a big bird circling in the sky. Wondering why it circled, I looked it up and found out about thermals and boils of birds. Here’s what I wrote:
Thermals are updrafts of warm air that rise from the ground into the sky. By flying a spiraling circular path within these columns of rising air, birds are able to “ride” the air currents and climb to higher altitudes while expending very little energy in the process. Solitary birds like eagles and hawks often take advantage of thermals to extend their flight time as they search for food. Social birds that fly in large flocks also use thermals to gain altitude and extend their range during migration. The sight of dozens or hundreds of birds riding a thermal has been said to resemble the water boiling in a kettle, so the terms kettle or boil are sometimes used as a nickname for a flock of birds circling in a thermal updraft. The benefits of thermals are not limited to the animal world either as glider pilots often take advantage of them to gain altitude as well.
I want to see hundreds of birds riding a thermal and looking like water boiling in a kettle! Mostly so I can see them doing it but also so I can write about the boil of birds I just saw.
a tree with eyes
On June 18th, 2020, walking with STA and Delia the dog, we noticed a tree that looked like it had eyes. Here’s what I wrote:
Every day, in the late afternoon around 5, Scott and I take Delia the dog on a long walk between Edmund Boulevard and the River Road. This week, while stopped near the upper campus of Minnehaha Academy–the one that was recently rebuilt after the old building exploded a few years ago, Scott noticed all the eyes on an aspen tree and took a picture of it. I remember remarking, “oh, I bet there’s a name for that. I’ll have to look it up.” I finally did just now. The most popular answer? Aspen eyes. According to several sites I found, these eyes are formed through self-grooming, when aspens shed their smallest branches.
walking and listening this morning
On my walk this morning with Delia the dog, I heard black-capped chickadees, pileated woodpeckers, cardinals, and the red-breasted nuthatch I just identified yesterday. Also might have heard the plink plink of a bobolink–is that possible?Standing at the rim of the giant sinkhole that’s been turned into a city park at 7 Oaks, I heard so many other birds, including one that I hear all the time but I can’t yet identify. I manage to record it (along with other birds). \
May 6th, a one-syllable bird call at 7 Oaks
Birding by ear is difficult and overwhelming at first. Too many different sounds that I can’t distinguish. So, I’m looking for tips, like these: Six tips for birding by ear. In it, they suggest some things to listen for.
An overcast, cooler day. Not quite gray but not blue either. Wore my new raspberry red shoes. I have wanted red shoes for a few years now. Felt faster, stronger. Tried to listen for more birds. Heard the usual (or uje as FWA and RJP like to say) singers: black-capped chickadees, cardinals, crows, pileated woodpeckers not drumming but calling out, sounding like a loon to me. Ran the final 1/2 mile with my spotify running playlist.
I heard a bird that I thought was a crow calling out and tried to figure out what word their call sounded like but I couldn’t. It was one syllable and shrill. I looked on the birdsong charts that I posted a few days ago for one syllable calls and found the red-breasted nuthatch. Listened to its call and it sounded like what I remember. Then, I looked it up on a birds of the mississippi river gorge guide that I found a few years ago. Yes! Red-breasted nuthatches are permanent residiences here. Nice! On the birdsong chart, the word used to describe the call is “ink” but I can’t hear that when I listen to it. Googling it, I found “ank ank” which sounds more like it to me. Here’s how all about birds describes them:
An intense bundle of energy at your feeder, Red-breasted Nuthatches are tiny, active birds of north woods and western mountains. These long-billed, short-tailed songbirds travel through tree canopies with chickadees, kinglets, and woodpeckers but stick to tree trunks and branches, where they search bark furrows for hidden insects. Their excitable yank-yank calls sound like tiny tin horns being honked in the treetops.
They like to hang out with chickadees and woodpeckers? That sounds right. I remember hearing “chick a dee dee dee” a lot too. I need to look up how to record/make not of a bird sound–what information do people usually include? Here’s a page with some helpful information that I’ll check out later. For now, I’ll write:
May 5, 10:25 At the corner of 44th and West River Parkway near Becketwood Red-breasted nuthatch call—“ank ank ank”
In the description, kinglets are mentioned too. Looked it up and we have those in the gorge as well. I’m thinking it might be helpful to look up the birds I know and then find out what other birds they hang out with. Also, when hearing bird sounds, try to listen for where they’re coming from–high up in the trees? the grass? lower branches?–then look up habitats. I feel this birding my ear will be slow work; I’ll consider it a big accomplishment if I can identify 2 or 3 more birds this month.
One last thing: I never would have guessed that the irritating, loud call I was hearing came from such a small bird. And I never would have guessed that it wasn’t a crow or a raven or a rook.
Looking through my safari reading list, I found this letter from Emily Dickinson to her cousins. I saved it a few years ago, I think. Why? Oh, past Sara what was in here that you wanted to keep? I’m not sure, but I think it’s fitting for the month of birds and birdsong. I’ll need to read her lines many more times before I feel close to understanding them, but I’m glad to have them.
TO: Louise and Frances Norcross FROM: ED
Sisters,
I hear robins a great way off, and wagons a great way off, and rivers a great way off, and all appear to be hurrying somewhere undisclosed to me. Remoteness is the founder of sweetness; could we see all we hope, or hear the whole we fear told tranquil, like another tale, there would be madness near. Each of us gives or takes heaven in corporeal person, for each of us has the skill of life. I am pleased by your sweet acquaintance. It is not recorded of any rose that it failed of its bee, though obtained in specific instances through scarlet experience. The career of flowers differs from ours only in inaudibleness. I feel more reverence as I grow for these mute creatures whose suspense or transport may surpass my own. Pussy remembered the judgment, and remained with Vinnie. Maggie preferred her home to “Miggles” and “Oakhurst,” so with a few spring touches, nature remains unchanged.
The most triumphant bird I ever knew or met, Embarked upon a twig to-day, – And till dominion set I perish to behold So competent a sight – And sang for nothing scrutable But impudent delight. Retired and resumed His transitive estate; To what delicious accident Does finest glory fit!
What to do with the contrast between the mute rose and the bird who sings for “nothing scrutable/But impudent delight”?
3.5 miles river road trail, south/under ford bridge turn-around/river road trail, north/Winchell Trail, north 48 degrees
Yes! I ran on the trail all the way today: headed south on the upper trail, turned around just past the ford bridge, then back home on the lower trail. Heading down to the lower (Winchell) trail, I admired the sparkling river again. I wish the lower trail was longer; I really enjoy being a little closer to the river and running under the trees and on the edge of the bluff. It was mostly sunny, but occasionally the sun would hide behind a cloud and the trail and the trees would turn from lime greens and dark browns to dull gray.
Ran past the 42nd street sewer pipe and I listened to the water, I figured out some words that fit between dripping and gushing (which was my problem from yesterday’s run): falling, flowing, (a gentle) flushing. As I tried to hold onto those words so I could remember them for this entry, I heard a sharp beeping or tweeting noise. At first I thought it was a bird, then I realized it was a truck backing up. Then I thought: when we hear the beeping of the truck, do we need to put the idea that it’s a truck backing up into words, or do we have a more immediate understanding of it? How intelligible/recognizable in language do these sounds need to be for us to know and respond to them? Thinking I might forget this thought, I decided to stop at the top of the short but steep hill near Folwell and record some notes.
May 4th/ notes mid run
I was inspired to think about sound and syllables and language because of my bird poem for the day. I became aware of it after two different bird articles (or books?) that I read yesterday used a bit of it for an epitaph. I think they both used this bit:
is it o-ka-lee or con-ka-ree, is it really jug jug, is it cuckoo for that matter?– much less whether a bird’s call means anything in particular, or at all.
Like the foghorn that’s all lung, the wind chime that’s all percussion, like the wind itself, that’s merely air in a terrible fret, without so much as a finger to articulate what ails it, the aeolian syrinx, that reed in the throat of a bird, when it comes to the shaping of what we call consonants, is too imprecise for consensus about what it even seems to be saying: is it o-ka-lee or con-ka-ree, is it really jug jug, is it cuckoo for that matter?– much less whether a bird’s call means anything in particular, or at all.
Syntax comes last, there can be no doubt of it: came last, can be thought of (is thought of by some) as a higher form of expression: is, in extremity, first to be jettisoned: as the diva onstage, all soaring pectoral breathwork, takes off, pure vowel breaking free of the dry, the merely fricative husk of the particular, rises past saying anything, any more than the wind in the trees, waves breaking, or Homer’s gibbering Thespesiae iache:
those last-chance vestiges above the threshold, the all- but dispossessed of breath.
aeolian (def): (adj) giving forth or marked by a moaning or sighing sound or musical tone produced by or as if by the wind. (adj) borne, deposited, produced, or eroded by the wind god of the winds (greek) aeolian mode: natural minor scale
iache (noun): any kind of inarticulate cry; most likely it is an onomatopoeia, an imitation of human sounds that are not language; most frequently used of the shouts that accompanied Greek religious ritual thespesiae (adj): divine, especially in the sense of mysterious or inaccessible to human understanding terms from Homer’s Odyssey, found in this helpful study guide for the poem
Click on this image to see how the syrinx works over at one of my favorite bird sites: All About Birds
Her line about the “pure vowel/breaking free” made me think of Robert Bly and his discussion of vowels in the documentary‘ STA and I watched the other day. He read this bit from his long poem, “As If Someone Else is With Me” from Morning Poems:
So it’s a bird-like thing then, this hiding And warming of sounds. They are the little low Heavens in the nest; now my chest feathers Widen, now I’m an old hen, now I am satisfied.
And here’s some helpful advice for starting to think about birding by ear:
How to “Bird by Ear”: Getting Started
To speed up the learning process, don’t just listen passively: Focus and analyze what you’re hearing. Describe the sound to yourself, draw a diagram, or write it down. If it’s a complicated song, figure out how many notes it has. Do all the notes have the same tone and vibe? Does the tune rise or fall? Can you adapt the “syllables” into words and make a mnemonic? The Barred Owl, for instance, hoots Who cooks for you, and the Common Yellowthroat sings Wichity-wichity-wichity. But you don’t have to just settle for published mnemonics; listen carefully and then invent your own. Little memory hooks like these will make birding easier the next time around. And as always, repetition helps.
4 miles 43rd ave, north/32nd, east/river road trail, south/winchell trail, north 54 degrees
What a wonderful run! Not too fast, not too hard, not too windy. Before I went out for my run, I started thinking more about birds and what I might focus on this month. More how birds sound and less how they look—their coloring, eyes, feathers, etc. Maybe some research on bird biomechanics and migration and navigation and how their feathers and bones and brains work? Too much to tackle in one month. As I wrote this last sentence, I thought about Annie Lamott’s book on writing, Bird by Bird, which I read many years ago and have now requested from the library in audiobook form. I could focus on one bird for each day of the month? I’ll think about it.
Anyway, at the start of my run I was thinking about birdsong and some sites I found with mnemonic devices for recognizing them, like this one: Memorizing bird songs made easy with mnemonics. This site has 2 great comics to help out:
I think I should look up the most common birds in the gorge and then try to learn the mnemonic devices for their sounds. At the beginning of my run, I thought I heard a bird song that started with a tweet tweet, but I don’t think it was a yellow warbler (see comic above). Last summer I wanted to learn more bird calls, but it was too overwhelming and I became distracted with other projects. Thinking about this more, at the end of my run, I remembered an idea I had earlier about not becoming overwhelmed by trying to learn too many things or feeling that there’s always too much that you don’t know. I want to learn just enough to make it interesting–not to become obsessed with knowing every bird song, or depressed by how much others already know. And by interesting, I mean: delightful, creating wonder and astonishment, enabling me to devote attention, provoking my curiosity, connecting me further to a place.
Here are some notes I took about my run shortly after I returned:
the sewer pipe in the ravine on the Winchell Trail by 44th was dripping/dribbling water, while the pipe by 42nd was—not gushing or rushing or pouring, but more than dripping…what’s the word for that? and why is there more water at 42nd?
running through the tunnel of trees and hearing at least 3 booms–what were they? transformers blowing or construction-related or a car back-firing?
so many glints, sparkling like jewels, on the river as I approached the overlook at the start of the Winchell Trail!
so many sounds of lawn mowers and leaf blowers and bird calls–not a wall of sound, but a veil
the steep slope up on the Winchell trail near folwell looking insurmountable from a distance
Look!
Near the old stone steps, I heard a deep hollow drumming from a hidden woodpecker, then saw 2 older women standing at the edge of the bluff peering into the trees and trying to find the source of the sound. This reminded me of a passage from Margaret Renkl’s essay “Seeing” in Late Migrations:
One of the nicest things about the lake where I like to walk is that there is nearly always someone on the trail saying, “Look!” Thanks to that natural human urge to share something wonderful, even with a stranger, I have learned this lake’s terrain over the years and know where to look for the well-disguised secrets I would miss on an unfamiliar path. I know that a barred owl frequently perches in a dead tree near a particular bridge. I know that a great blue heron often stand as still as a photograph on a submerged log in one cove. I know the rise whee wild turkeys drag their wing feathers on the ground and blend in with the leaf litter, and I know the bank where beavers climb soundlessly out of the lake. One summer I knew where to look for a hummingbird’s nest because of a stranger with better eyes than mine.
“Seeing” from Late Migrations/ Margaret Renkl
When I read this passage a few days ago, I decided that I want to believe that the strangers on the trail that I encounter could be as generous as this, and I want to take the time to stop and to look or try to look or at least listen to their description of what they see. I want do this instead of assuming the strangers are irritating or clueless or selfish space hoggers. I want to be open to the world instead of closed to it.
Here is a bird poem I found while looking back through my safari reading list. Ted Kooser is wonderful.
A Heron/ Ted Kooser
Maybe twenty yards out from the shoreline a great blue heron waiting, motionless, upon a post that seemed to have no purpose other than to stand there stained with rings of history as the old lake, breathing sunlight, rose and fell.
The heron was the color of the water so that it seemed that I could see the water through her, as if she were a creature blown of glass, not smeared by anybody’s fingers, still clean and delicate and waiting to be filled with color
although I saw that she was filled already, from the bulb of her body to the tip of her beak, not with a color that anyone knew but with a cloudy fluid that had been distilled from summer light and now was being aged and mellowed
though how much longer it might take was anybody’s guess. But I had been imagining too long, and she had felt it, too, that threat of too much beauty being forced upon her, and spread her glassy wings and lifted off and flapped away across the water.
What a beautiful poem! I think I want to memorize it so I can have it forever.
Ran with STA this morning. Very nice. Noticed the river as we crossed Lake Street. It was brown and calm. No rowers this morning. Are we too early or too late to see them? Ran in reverse today and noticed many houses for the first time. Over-sized houses on over-sized lots. STA pointed out three benches in a half circle, facing the sun with no trees, sitting in a triangle of grass just off of Franklin near a bus stop. He said he hadn’t noticed them before. I don’t think I have either. They don’t look like much fun, sitting there facing the sun–except for maybe on bright, warm-ish days in the winter. Crossing the Franklin bridge we noticed how the sky north of us, over downtown, had an ominous purple tint, while the sky south of us, closer to the falls, was a placid blue. Stopped at STA’s favorite spot–a big tree above the river road–and noticed how much the leaves by the gorge have filled in. Goodbye view to the other side. I can’t remember when it happened during the run, but I remember a robin right in front of us on the path and STA jokingly calling out, “Get outta here, you Robin” and then as it scampered or scuttled? off, STA remarking, “I like how it couldn’t be bothered to fly.” As I remember it, the Robin kind of looked like someone crossing the street and doing that strange hurrying but not hurrying walk run.
may’s exercise?
A new month, which means a new monthly exercise. March was Emily Dickinson, April Mary Oliver. At first I was thinking Robert Bly for May because STA and I just watched this awesome documentary about him on the local PBS channel, but Bly seems more fitting for the winter. Tentatively I have decided not to focus on a single poet, but on a theme: birds. I’ve been reading a great collection of bird poems by the ornithologist J. Drew Lanham, and slowly watching/listening/reading a lecture from Marta Werner on her project, Dickinson’s Birds. Both ED and MO feature birds in many of their poems, and so do so many other poets. Will I want to read about birds for the entire month? Not sure yet.
GROUP THINK: NEW NAMES FOR PLURAL BIRDS/ J. Drew Lanham
A Hemorrhage of cardinals red-staining the backyard A Consideration, Council or Congress of crows; call them anything but murderers, please. A Whir of hummingbirds A Riff (or Mood) of any bird that’s blue A Thicket of sparrows A Mine of goldfinches A Skulk of thrashers A Cuddle of chickadees. (Cute is a definite field mark.) A Thuggery of jaegers A Piracy of skuas A Crucifixion of shrikes A Mattering of Black birds— Lives ignored, hated and dissed. How did darkness become so despised? A Melody of thrushes A Palette of painted buntings An Audacity of wrens— finding every crevice ever created and signing loudest about that fact. A Vomitus of vultures. A Swarm of flycatchers— Empidonax “spuh” be damned. A Tide of shorebirds— rising more than falling, wishful thinking on past abundance; knots, whimbrel, peeps, plovers, curlews darkening salt marsh skies. A Privilege of all birds white— though it’s not their fault for almost always being given the benefit of doubt or being mostly respected; usually liked. An Immigration of starlings, loved to tears in distant murmuration but deplored to legalized killing on the street. Deprived of breath without penalty or cause. A Herd of cowbirds. Given the gift of never parenting. Evolutionary brillance. A Flurry of snowbirds; juncos my grandmother claimed she pitied and threw them handfuls of grits. A Wandering of warblers An Envy or swallow-tailed kites A Front of waterfowl —forecasting gray winter days to come. A Cache of nuthatches A Wheeze of gnatcatchers A Throne of kinglets (or court if you please). A Missing of Carolina parakeets, too smart for their own good. An Echo of passenger pigeons —billions dwindled to none. A Memory of ivory-bills in praise of the Great Lord God maybe not all gone. An Inclusion of mixed migratory flocks, hopefully integrated by choice and not forced to co-mingle in whatever gulfs they must cross. Wondering what they would call themselves? if there is disagreement over plumage color, wing bar width, leg hue, call tone or habitat of origin? How would they name us? Would the tables turn? Am I a greater Southern Black-backed two-legged thing? You perhaps a common White-fronted human being? Someone else named after a passerine of respectable fame or raptor of murderous infamy? Here in gratitude of everyone there ever was— Whatever the name. A Love of birds. My collective label.
some terms I looked up after reading this poem:
a thuggery of jaegers/piracy of skuas:
Parasitic Jaegers, known as arctic skuas in Europe, are fast-flying relatives of gulls with a piratical lifestyle. They breed on the Arctic tundra, where they prey mainly on birds and their eggs. They spend the rest of the year on the open ocean, harrying other seabirds and sometimes attacking in groups, until they give up their catch. Jaegers come in several color morphs. Immatures can be extremely difficult to separate from other jaeger species.
The Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird with a raptor’s habits. A denizen of grasslands and other open habitats throughout much of North America, this masked black, white, and gray predator hunts from utility poles, fence posts and other conspicuous perches, preying on insects, birds, lizards, and small mammals. Lacking a raptor’s talons, Loggerhead Shrikes skewer their kills on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. Their numbers have dropped sharply in the last half-century.
Empidonax “spuh” is twitcher’s jargon (committed birdwatchers who travel far distances to see a new species to add to their “life list” Empid (US): any of the flycatchers of the genus Empidonax, infamous among North American birders for being difficult to identify in the field without the aid of vocalizations. spuh: birds that are only identifiable to genus level
Juncos:
Juncos are neat, even flashy little sparrows that flit about forest floors of the western mountains and Canada, then flood the rest of North America for winter. They’re easy to recognize by their crisp (though extremely variable) markings and the bright white tail feathers they habitually flash in flight.
passerine (def): (adj) relating to or denoting birds of a large order distinguished by feet that are adapted for perching, including all songbirds. (noun) a perching bird
Thinking about collective nouns for animals and insects, partly because of this poem, partly because I love collective nouns, and partly because of the ending to this short essay, “Seeing” from Late Migrations that I read yesterday:
Farther down the trail, my beautiful niece, whose eyes see twenty-twenty even without glasses, paused before a fallen tree covered with shelf fungi. She pointed to a ladybug nearly hidden in the folds. “When I was hiking in Colorado, I saw a whole bunch of ladybugs, so I checked Google to see if there’s a name for a group that gathers in one place,” she said. “It’s called a ‘loveliness.'”
I didn’t run today. Instead, I got my second shot of Pfizer. In 2 weeks I will be fully vaccinated. I am looking forward to running on more trails, by more lakes, over more bridges.
3.35 miles edmund loop, starting north with extra loop around Cooper 60 degrees
Another beautiful morning in shorts! The same pair of shorts I’ve been wearing for probably 6 or 7 years, almost every day in the summer and sometimes with tights in the winter. How many hundreds of times have I worn these shorts? I wish Brooks still made them. I’ve looked but can’t find a pair like them anywhere. They’ve faded a lot and lost a drawstring but they’re still working. How much longer can they last?
Things I remember from my run:
running in the street at least 2 or 3 times to avoid people
the gorgeous fragrance of the blossoms on the fence of the house with the free fruit—still can’t recall what kind of fruit it is or when it’s free
two oak trees lining the path that look like they’re leaning in to chat with each other, while a third oak with the hunched up limbs looks like they’re shrugging their shoulders to gesture, “I don’t know”
the old stone steps inviting me to take them down to the river
some stones stacked on the ancient boulder
a person sitting on the bench near the entrance to the Winchell Trail with the worn wooden steps
a runner in a bright red shirt slowly passing me
someone using a leaf blower (really?) down on the Winchell Trail to clear out the leaves that pile up against the wrought iron fence
the river sparkling at spots—one spot over on the other side was extra bright
more pale green leaves
several black-capped chickadee conversations
a bug buzzing past my face–was it a bee? a dragonfly?
more shshshuffling on the sandy debris
ending my run thinking about how I’m getting my second Pfizer shot tomorrow and wondering when I’ll feel up to running again. Hopefully on Sunday
Work/ Mary Oliver
How beautiful this morning was Pasture Pond. It had lain in the dark, all night, catching the rain on its broad back. All day I work with the linen of words and the pins of punctuation all day I hang out over a desk grinding my teeth staring. Then I sleep. Then I come out of the house, even before the sun is up, and walk back through the pinewoods to Pasture Pond.
I like the simplicity of this poem and the broad back of the pond catching the rain and the connection between her writing work and sewing–the linen of words and the pins of punctuation. My mom was an amazing sewer. I am not. I think this might have something to do with my bad vision, but also my disposition. I don’t have the patience or the desire for precision or the interest in clothes. I’ve always wished I could sew and could make things: useful, practical things. Now I make poems which are not practical but are things I’ve created and are useful, at least to me. This year for her 15th birthday, we got RJP a sewing machine. She’s been knitting for 3 years, crocheting for 6 months, and now sewing for a few weeks. If my mom were alive, she would have loved this and would have mentored RJP. What a loss! Still, it’s exciting to see RJP’s passion for fiber arts and to witness at least one part of my mom reborn in her.
Maybe it was thinking about sewing and then the idea of seams that made me do it: I googled “Emily Dickinson sewing” and found this amazing poem through this very cool blog entry. Not only about sewing but about ED’s failing vision. Nice!
Don’t put up my Thread and Needle — / Emily Dickinson
Don’t put up my Thread and Needle — I’ll begin to Sew [Sow] When the Birds begin to whistle — Better Stitches — so —
These were bent — my sight got crooked — When my mind — is plain I’ll do seams — a Queen’s endeavor Would not blush to own —
Hems — too fine for Lady’s tracing To the sightless Knot — Tucks — of dainty interspersion — Like a dotted Dot —
Leave my Needle in the furrow — Where I put it down — I can make the zigzag stitches Straight — when I am strong —
Till then — dreaming I am sewing [sowing] Fetch the seam I missed — Closer — so I — at my sleeping — Still surmise I stitch —
Now I want to think about edges and limits in terms of seams and stitches!
4 miles river road trail, south/waban park/turkey hollow/edmund, north 50 degrees
Shorts! Sun! Spring! Yesterday’s cold rain really pushed me over the edge. I’m ready for more sun, more sitting on the deck, more spring-y weather. Today the river was calm and blue, peeking through the green that is already starting to spoil my view. Ran on the river road trail all the way to the turn-off to Wabun park, then ran up and turned right just before reaching the Ford Bridge.
Franny Choi: there’s something different between maybe like, looking versus listening, right? Like, I feel like there’s some, I don’t know, what is that thing.
Taylor Johnson: I think there’s a goal in mind. I think with searching, it’s like, I know I’m gonna come out, let’s say, onto the sidewalk or in the woods, and I’m gonna see a particular X, Y, and Z, you know what I mean? Whereas listening, it’s like, things kind of wash over you and happen with you, rather than you having something in your mind where it’s like, I need to see this particular thing, or I’m listening for this particular thing. It’s kind of a more open, open experience.
I listened as I started my run and I remember taking note of many different sounds, all mixing into each other, none seeming that distinctive. Birds, traffic, laughing kids on the playground, shuffling feet on debris, someone raking a yard, wind chimes, my breathing as I settled into my run, a song blasting from a car radio, the faint jingle of my house key in my running belt, a woman sneezing–or was it coughing?
I also thought about Mary Oliver and a few things I was reading this morning–poems and an article by Rose Lucas about MO: Drifting in the Weeds of Heaven: Mary Oliver and the Poetics of the Immeasurable. And thought about the idea of the self and their relationship to nature as observer and observed, as someone who stares/pays attention to the world and someone who participates in it. Then I had a thought—I remember having it just as I was crossing 42nd from the stretch of grass between 42nd and Becketwood (what STA and I call the gauntlet because it’s narrow and close to the road and difficult to avoid other people if they’re on it too) and the wide boulevard of grass separating Edmund and the River Road—about how Mary Oliver’s ethical poetics of noticing, being astonished, and telling others about it involves a lot of standing back and still, staring, stopping, taking notes, sitting at a desk and writing. Yes, becoming connected or immersed in what you are noticing does happen, but the emphasis is on observing/seeing/staring at the world at some sort of distance and when you have stopped moving or doing anything. You stop to notice, or notice then stop, observe or behold (this makes me want to revisit Ross Gay and the idea of beholding), then sit and write. What if you didn’t stop? What if you observed while moving (while running?) Took notes while moving? Wrote while moving? I wonder how far I can push at the limits of writing about the gorge while running at the gorge–not running and noticing then writing, but running while noticing while writing.
Notes from the run, April 28th
Before I went out for my run, I was thinking about a few poems.
Here are two different versions of the same general idea: being lifted out of the tyranny of your thoughts by the beauty of nature.
It’s a gift, this cloudless November morning warm enough to walk without a jacket along your favorite path. The rhythmic shushing of your feet through fallen leaves should be enough to quiet the mind, so it surprises you when you catch yourself telling off your boss for a decade of accumulated injustices, all the things you’ve never said circling inside you.
The rising wind pulls you out of it, and you look up to see a cloud of leaves wheeling in sunlight, flickering against the blue and lifting above the treetops, as if the whole day were sighing, Let it go, let it go, for this moment at least, let it all go.
Terns/ Mary Oliver
Don’t think just now of the trudging forward of thought, but of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.
It’s summer, you never saw such a blue sky, and here they are, those white birds with quick wings,
sweeping over the waves, chattering and plunging,
their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes happy as little nails.
The years to come — this is a promise — will grant you ample time
to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.
But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding, than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
The flock thickens over the roiling, salt brightness. Listen,
maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,
but it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt, is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,
but of pure submission. Tell me, what else could beauty be for? And now the tide
is at its very crown, the white birds sprinkle down,
gathering up the loose silver, rising as if weightless. It isn’t instruction, or a parable.
It isn’t for any vanity or ambition except for the one allowed, to stay alive.
It’s only a nimble frolic over the waves. And you find, for hours,
you cannot even remember the questions that weigh so in your mind.
For most of my life, up until last year when, during the pandemic, I felt compelled to finally notice them, I haven’t payed attention to birds. So I wasn’t familiar with terns–that might also be because, sadly, I’ve never lived by the sea. Anyway, terns is not a term I’ve known. In fact, my first encounter with it happened just last month, while reading a New Yorker article about the marvelous methods animals have for navigating and not getting lost. Buried deep in the article is this interesting bit of trivia:
Or consider the Arctic tern, which has a taste for the poles that would put even Shackleton to shame; it lays its eggs in the Far North but winters on the Antarctic coast, yielding annual travels that can exceed fifty thousand miles. That makes the four-thousand-mile migration of the rufous hummingbird seem unimpressive by comparison, until you realize that this particular commuter weighs only around a tenth of an ounce. The astonishment isn’t just that a bird that size can complete such a voyage, trade winds and thunderstorms be damned; it’s that so minuscule a physiology can contain a sufficiently powerful G.P.S. to keep it on course.
Very cool. MO’s line about gathering up the loose silver reminds me of a ED poem that I read in March:
A Bird came down the Walk—/ Emily Dickinson
A Bird came down the Walk— He did not know I saw— He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass— And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass—
He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around— They looked like frightened Beads, I thought, He stirred his Velvet Head—
Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb And he unrolled his feathers And rowed him softer Home—
Than Oars divide the Ocean, Too silver for a seam— Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon Leap, plashless as they swim.
I have many thoughts about these three poems that I can’t quite express. About the narrator and their involvement in the scene they’re describing, about the “You”—who they are, what they’re for, about being didactic, about circling, about silver and seams and when the observed becomes the observer. And, about this line from MO:
But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding, than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
So I’m thinking about this in relation to my quote about the difference between looking and listening at the beginning of this post, and in terms of my own desire to feel with senses other than sight, or with sight not as Sight (as an objective, unfiltered way of being in and with the world). This idea of sight not as Sight, comes out of my thinking about how I see through my damaged eyes. I can see, but not with sharp focus or precision or mastery–I don’t look and See, as in, capture/own what I see with my eyes. My seeing is softer and involves more fluid waves and forms being felt. Returning to MO’s poem, I could definitely be delighted by the terns as I watched them moving—sweeping and plunging and thickening–because you detect motion in your peripheral vision and my peripheral vision is great. But I probably couldn’t see how many terns there are or how their thin beaks snapped. And I wouldn’t be able to see their hard eyes happy as little nails. But, seriously, can anyone see bird eyes in this way, other than MO?
Thinking about how MO uses seeing as a way to pay attention reminds me of another poem of hers with one of my favorite titles:
The little hawk leaned sideways and, tilted, rode the wind. Its eye at this distance looked like green glass; its feet were the color of butter. Speed, obviously, was joy. But then, so was the sudden, slow circle it carved into the slightly silvery air, and the squaring of its shoulders, and the pulling into itself the sharp-edged wings, and the falling into the grass where it tussled a moment, like a bundle of brown leaves, and then, again, lifted itself into the air, that butter-color clenched in order to hold a small, still body, and it flew off as my mind sang out oh all that loose, blue rink of sky, where does it go to, and why?
I remember reading this a few years ago and thinking how little I might have been able to see of the hawk she describes. I could see the tilting, the riding of the wind, the circling and carving, but not the color of its feet or its green eyes or that it was holding something in its claws. It’s interesting to read these poems and think about them in relation to my vision and the limits of my seeing. I especially like thinking about the ways I can still see and how they might be reflected/communicated in a poem about attention. This idea of describing how I see differently is as important to me as learning how to feel with senses other than sight.
Wow, lots of not quite focused thoughts in this post. Not sure if it makes sense but the act of writing it has been helpful for me in thinking about MO, and attention, and my project of writing while running and running while writing.
Ran to the trestle today. Was thinking about running more, but the road was closed, so I turned around. As I ran south again, I heard the rumble of a train on the trestle. Nice! Greeted Dave the Daily Walker twice! Heard a gaggle of geese below me, honking. Smelled a full porta potty being drained as I ran under the lake street bridge. Yuck. I remember looking at the river, but I don’t remember what it looked like. I bet it was a pretty, light blue. Encountered a few runners, walkers, dogs. We all kept our distance. Heard some rowers getting ready down at the rowing club. At one point, I had “Wouldn’t it be Loverly” from My Fair Lady going through my head. STA and I watched the movie last week. “All I want is a room somewhere/far away from the cold night air” Time to memorize a few more spring poems to recite in my head.
Almost done with my month with Mary and I have mixed feelings. Some beautiful words and stimulating ideas, but something’s missing. Is it the lack of connection to time? Her poems are firmly rooted in a place–Provincetown, MA–but not in specific time. She mentions seasons, and occasionally her age, but not much else. It is all now or eternity or outside of the realm of ticking clocks. Some of this I like, but some of it leaves me feeling adrift and disoriented–that, along with the repetition of the same idea about stopping to notice the world, again and again. I want to experience these moments of clarity, or the Now, or a flare of joy/delight/understanding, but I don’t want that to be all that I experience. The feeling of timelessness, and an endless circling back and repeating the same things, without any specific reference, is too much. My feelings about this right now are probably partly due to a year+ of doing nothing but running, writing, and staying home, trying to avoid people during a pandemic. Every day is the same, every week, every month, every season.
But I think my feelings are also because I’m missing the Mary–the person, that is—in her poems. In so many of them, she is trying lose herself in the world, to become the snail, the pale lily, the hunter, the hound (see “Work”):
from From the Book of Time
and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures, including
the enclosure of yourself?
from Riprap
I’m never sure which part of the dream is me and which part is the rest of the world.
from I Want to Write Something Simple
and though it be my story it will be common, thought it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think— no, you will realize— that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your own heart had been saying.
I appreciate this gesture against centering herself and towards entanglement (in Upstream she writes: “Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else?”) but I’d like more of herself in the midst of others. Of course, I do this too and am trying to find ways to be bring myself into my work and the world–that’s probably why I’m critical of it in her? What would/could/should it look like to put the person in the poem? I’m not totally sure but I feel like it requires more mention of ordinary, everyday time, grounded in specific minutes (and not moments) of life. I’m not sure if this makes much sense, but I don’t want to spend the whole day trying to figure it out, so I’ll just leave it like this.
