Tag Archives: Michigan

Unknown's avatar

palindrome

by

020220.sunset over Gourdneck Lake

Two important things happened yesterday–the palindrome day:

1. After weeks under the permacloud of winter in the Mitten, the sun came back. I pulled the car over to grab this shot with my phone as evidence of this miraculous event.

2. I found my voice in a book I hadn’t realized I’d already been writing for several years now. When I heard it, it didn’t sound snarky, impatient and annoyed but joyful . . . as if whooping from the bottom of a well where it had waited for so long to be hauled up in a bucket full of everything I need. I couldn’t see it before . . . but yesterday I could . . . with complete clarity.

From these two amazing events, here’s what stands out:

1. All day, I was rolling my eyes at the big deal everyone was making of the palindromic date: 02/02/2020. But upon reflection, maybe a palindrome creates a portal for a rare and perfect balance of the present with a full 360 degree view of one’s past and future. Maybe it’s taken 909 years to be ready to write my own book in my own voice.

2. Clearly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Super Bowl.

 

Unknown's avatar

What’s it all about, Alfie?

by

IMG_3485

If I can’t keep my mind still, I let Alfie, the heron who rooks on the bank opposite my dock, do the meditating for me. He’s terribly good at it, even when the red winged blackbirds give him no peace. Of course, I realize he’s laser-focused on frog-hunting, but he looks for all the world like he’s pondering life’s greatest questions. What’s it all about? (This is how I arrived at his name.) He can stare without twitching a feather for 20 minutes and more. Way more. I just can’t even keep watching.

IMG_2809

After he’s had enough of the vigorous, pointed disapproval from the other birds, he’ll lift his great wings and whoosh away above the water.

IMG_2824

IMG_3486

Alfie is a tremendous hunter and any small protein-rich thing is at risk. For all I know, he ate the only signet produced this year by Keats and Shelley, the resident swans in this stretch of headwater. Their sweet baby disappeared the day after I took some fuzzy pictures of it bobbing about near the parents a couple weeks ago. Last year, all four of their babies were snapped up by the huge, horrid turtle–hence his name: Horrice.

No, I’m not laying that at Alfie’s webbed feet.

IMG_3483

At 3am, Alfie’s deeply primordial, serrated shriek wakes me in wonder of what has to be worked out at such an hour. Then, of course, I start thinking of all the things I must work out, too. His agitation settles . . . mine goes on ’til dawn sometimes.

All I know is I believe in love, Alfie. Without true love we just exist. Until you find the love you’ve missed, you’re nothing, Alfie.

Unknown's avatar

here lies one whose name was writ in water

by

IMG_2275Keats barely moves since the drama with Shelley two days ago.

I watched its inscrutable unfolding. After the polar vortex finally sheathed, the sleety-rain wore the river ice out, opening it into feeding pools. But Keats wasn’t content with the usual fare, or maybe there wasn’t enough to eat for two swans plus the gaggle of geese vying for the same meager rations. He cautiously made his way far up the bank onto my yard, looking for greener pastures. Shelley’s reaction was dramatic. She morphed into a great rigid, full-feathered display, swimming sharp back-and-forth turns instead of the smooth, long glides of their usual conversation. Keats watched her, but kept going. He got as far as my fire pit, and then he just stood there for a few hours.

She didn’t join him. I didn’t see her go or hear the ropey whirr of her wings hauling her weight into and through the air, but Shelley’s been gone ever since.

IMG_2271Before dark, Keats went back to the river where he’s been hanging out in the shallows by himself ever since, keening quietly. He’s not feeding. Today, he hasn’t moved a feather–I would know because I can’t stop watching for this. I feel like I’m sitting Shiva with him. How long can this last?

I looked it up: seven days.

 

(the title of this post is from the inscription on Keats’ tomb at the Cimitero Acattolico di Roma in Rome)

Unknown's avatar

Keats has guests.

by

IMG_5719
Keats, an orange-billed Mute Swan who lost his mate years ago I’m told, tolerates the visit of a pair of Trumpeter Swans this morning. “Mute” Swan is a bit of a misnomer. Believe me, they can make a ruckus when anything gets into their territory. So I was surprised at the congeniality between these competitors for food and space.
IMG_5734
I was also surprised to see Trumpeter Swans at all. Although native to Michigan, a very wet place that is ideally suited to this water fowl, the more aggressive Mute Swans have gobbled up the territory until a relocation program brought their numbers down by half between 2010 and 2015. Trumpeter Swans are endangered in many states, but making a comeback here in the Mitten.
IMG_5732
I’ve never seen Trumpeter Swans in these headwaters before, nor the lake just to the south where I lived for four years. So I decided to put my coffee down and try to capture photographic evidence should the credibility of this sighting ever be called into question.
IMG_5711
They were as interested in me as I was in them when I went out to the bank with my camera and Ophelia, my zoom lens that I didn’t even need since they didn’t fly away. They glided over to the water in front of me very cooperatively. I wish I’d had Armand, my 72mm lens that would have done them more justice photographically. I hope they come back, or stay. Keats, apparently, and I, definitely, would be so happy to have them.

Unknown's avatar

the sound of home

by

harsha farm.JPG

This farm has been in Xander’s family for generations, starting with the great-great grandfather who built a schoolhouse on it so the local children–his own included–would have a place of learning.

It was a great place to capture his senior picture.

IMG_2911

There is not much happening on this farm now. The land is all leased out. The field behind the house is a nesting spot for sand hill cranes–hundreds and hundreds of them. Their unmistakable call sounds like some feathered ancestor imprinted on geese and sea gulls simultaneously.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrB8qG5FPdZ4wwAUZyJzbkF?p=sand+hill+cranes&fr=mcafee&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Ai%2Cm%3Apivot#id=4&vid=7c7e21ec7d82a7065d749beb5fa61067&action=view

The sand hill cranes have been here a lot longer than Xander’s family farm, returning annually from as far away as Siberia, they say.

Wherever he roams, whenever this boy hears one, it’ll remind him of home.

IMG_2918-001