on plants and other wild things
STRAWBERRY BEGONIA
It has such an alien look
My curly-edged-velvet-leaved plant
That hangs on a window hook.
Overnight it has shot up wands
Where perch tiny white dragonflies
Long-tailed, short-winged, each
With a round yellow body. Meanwhile
Under the pot hang long delicate
Red threads bearing widely spaced
Baby versions of the mother leaves.
The flowers are greeting the spring
Equinox or enacting a resurrection
Or else they are beckoning bees.
I call it my mystery plant.
SONNET TO THE FIRST SNOWFALL
Behind her wrinkled monkey face
An apple-cheeked lass still smiles
At the wintry woods as a welcoming place:
The trails ahead beckon for miles.
But the creaky old back refuses to bend
To strap on the cross-country skis.
It’s just as well. Two turkeys send
Their calls from neighboring pine trees.
The winterberries wink red in the snow.
Ahead are the tracks of a snowshoe hare.
Her winter boots will suffice, she knows,
For a brief but rewarding excursion there
Where the red squirrels’ litter will be found
And many other treasures abound.
NEIGHBORS
The cardinal in my Katsura tree
Stares at my blue spruce
From which a house finch emerges
To chase him up to the roof.
As I walk to the workout gym
A squirrel crosses my path.
I’m of no concern to him,
An acorn within his grasp.
The robin gives me a look
And continues with his quest
Hoping to trace the route
Of earthworms under the grass
As on a nearby birch
A woodpecker hammers his search.
AT THE GOAT FARM
It’s mud time in March and I am on my way
To pick up milk at the Jesta Farm
Where mother goats are kidding every day.
There’s mud on the farmyard driveway
Covered with hay. The chickens prance
To meet me, clucking their querulous queries.
I warn them not to take a chance
On foraging under my car wheels.
Pungent odors assail my nose
As I slide open the door to the warm barn
And hear the bleats of nanny goats
Who fear their kids have come to harm.
I take my milk and head for home
Where ice no longer coats our pond.
The Woods in Winter
When the snow blows up and sideways
And a white mist fills the air,
When spruces, pines and hemlocks
Have donned white winter wear,
When rocks in the mountain rivers
Are circled by collars of rime
And snow on the boulders’ shoulders
Wraps them in capes of ermine,
Then I must take to the woods,
Set my boots on snow-packed trails,
Follow the tracks of deer,
Coyotes and snowshoe hares,
Rejoice in the white open spaces,
Respond to the call of wild places.
TREES
In years past I’ve laid my hand
On many a smooth-barked tree
On many a mountain trail
And looked up to shallow-rooted
Pines standing stately and tall.
Like Rob Frost I’ve envied the birches
That bend under burdens of snow
In graceful compliant submission,
Then rise up again in the spring
To shake their new leaves in the sun.
Now it’s limb-lopped but upright
Old skeletal trees that I notice
On country roads or in paintings,
Woodpecker raddled and ravaged
By age that I chiefly admire.
FALLING LEAVES
They lift and pirouette in the pulsing breeze,
These brown and desiccated maple leaves,
Dancing and leaping and twisting, a phantom crowd,
Surrounding me and my car in a thickening cloud.
They seem to have some message they want to convey;
They seem to want me to stop while they have their say.
I will slow my pace but I will not come to a halt,
Whatever these autumn messengers foretell.
Bare branches offer an unimpeded view
Allowing the splendor of sunsets to come through.
Snow-dusted branches also have their charm:
Who strides on snowshoes easily keeps warm.
At any time of the year I’ll keep journeying.
The day has not yet come for tamely sitting.
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF ECUADOR
Agoutis and ant-eating armadillos,
Anis and toucans and bronze parrots
Are just a few exotic dwellers
Found in Ecuador’s cloud forests.
And if you ascend to the Andean highlands
Cara cara and condors will soar overhead,
Andean deer will graze in the grasslands,
Alpine hare will lurk in the shade.
Unique parama plants abound
Giant rosettes and grasses above all.
Downy and lidded leaves are found
Protected from the wind’s assault.
And all are steadily upward moving
As earth’s climate continues warming.
THE SPICE OF VARIETY
In Ecuador platanos are fed to the birds:
Dozens of hummers, tanagers and such.
In Ecuador mango juice is savored
And passion fruit mousse, but not too much.
Ecuadorians favor grass-fed beef,
Sea bass, camarones and farm-pond trout.
Yuca strips dipped in sugar are a treat.
Espresso they will never do without.
Ecuador is home to many climates,
Subtropical and temperate and more,
Which Andean cloud forests generate:
It all depends on how far up you go.
So if you’re feeling tired of deja vu,
Ecuador is the perfect place for you.
AT THE RIO COSANGA
We left our San Isidro cabanas
And stopped at the bridge on the Rio Cosanga
To search for the elusive yellow duck
For which we were not to be in luck.
However, blue swallows sat on a rail
Preening and flipping their wings and tails,
Then dipping and swooping in widening arcs
Snapping up insects above the rocks
Where the river rushed in a foaming flood
Fed by the weeping clouds above.
WHITE LAKE
It’s like dipping our paddles in glass
So clear is the water, so pristine the sand.
We watch as reflections glide past:
The pines and the hemlocks in orderly ranks.
Three loons are reflected as well,
The mother and father with chick in between.
Soon they will hear the South call
And singly take flight to the beckoning sea.
A migrating monarch drifts by,
One of an army toward Mexico bound.
And what is our path, you and I?
Do we too respond to the warm siren’s sound?
Or must we accede to the cold,
Settle down in our comforter blanket of snow?
SEPTEMBER MORNING ON THE EXETER
In the river today the trees
Mirror themselves. As we paddle
Our kayaks we see double:
Two trunks, two thatches of branches,
Two patches of reeds, two blossoms
Of pickerel weed, two bushes
Of orange-bespotted jewelweed,
Two bare and barren wood-peckered
Skeletal hulks with bony limbs.
From the dark woods a hoot owl
Invites us to come on in, come on in.
Bluejays flit across our bows.
Wild ducks practice flight patterns.
The heron is no longer present.