Past, Present, and Poetry

Above the Bighorn Basin I saw eight white birds tooling in the air columns. 

                               (wiki photo)

Binoculars showed long orange beaks and black-tipped wings:  White pelicans, my favorite bird…or even animal, too…so prehistoric, so awkward on land but effortlessly gliding just above rising waves…reminding me of speed skating’s glide over the ice.

Their high dance brought to mind Walt Whitman’s spectacular poem:

Dalliance of the Eagles

        Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)

        Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,

        The rushing amorous contact high in space together,

        The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,

        Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,

        In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,

        Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,

        A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,

        Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,

        She hers, he his, pursuing.

And this led to a fine memory:  Edmond and I were picnicking at Fenton Lake, high above Jemez Springs.  A hawk alighted on a branch right above us with a fish in its talons.  She leisurely picked her way through her lunch, ending up with talons sticky with fish guts.  So she swooped over the lake dipping her talons briefly in the water….then again, moistening the mess.  Finally she took a long run, dragging her talons half way across the lake, flushing off the yuck.  A neat trick and a treat for us to witness.

"My Eye is in Love"...

...by Frederick Franck (frederick franck pacem in terris), was one of my mom's favorite books...me too.  Most mornings I wake with the meadowlarks, thrilled  to look out my window as dawn shades the countryside from gray-greens to brighter hues.

My eyes will never tire of feasting on new arrangements of red, green, blue and white....earth, growth, the heavens, the thunderheads.

I'm incredibly fortunate and grateful to have a husband who understands and supports my enthusiasms, even though he doesn't share them, not even for world-famous anticlines!  And good friends further along in life encouraged me to "Do it now while you can!"

My eye also loves the forms...the sculptural shapes of the hills, mountains, valleys, gulches, hoodoos, mesas...and windrows.  My camera, even though it's only an iPhone, focuses my roving eye, and then reading and writing give context and depth to what I see.  The last time I felt this inspired was at the Chicago Art Institute.  I'd ridden a train cross country as a pilgrimage to a place dear to my mother's heart.  I stayed in Chicago a week (Edmond was in Texas windsurfing), loving every minute.  But when I walked into the modern wing of the museum and encountered a huge Jackson Pollock painting, I was instantly changed.  The kaleidoscope had turned.

This journey has brought another turn, and the pieces have fallen into a fresh pattern integrating many of my loves: travel, photography, reading, writing, geology, wide open spaces, meandering, and simply seeing.  If I need any justification for leaving home and loved ones for awhile, this is it.

When John Steinbeck left his family and home to travel the USA, his family worried but understood his need, as his son reports, to see his country once again before he died.  He traveled over 10,000 miles in his camper Rocinante (named after Don Quixote's horse), with his poodle Charley sitting shotgun.  Years ago I said I wanted to take trips focused on geological sites and sights.  It was over-due.

And so....as my candle is burning lower with the setting sun, I celebrate each dawn.