Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category
*
Paul Winter Image, from Internet Where but Princeton would the best of music and the best of poetry meet in a sacred space, to further the preservation of priceless open land in our state? On Wednesday, October 10, the sublime smooth jazz of the Paul Winter Consort will weave around the powerful global poetry of Jane Hirshfield. Each enhancing the music of the other, music as notes and words as notes will soar to the apex of Princeton University Chapel and beyond, beginning at 7 p.m.
Princeton University Chapel Image from Internet The beneficiary of this unique event, followed by a Meet-the-Artists Reception and Signing at Firestone Library, is D&R Greenway Land Trust. The non-profit’s preservation and stewardship accomplishments began in 1989, tallying over 23 miles-and-counting in this, our most populous state. Poets and students in our time have thrilled to the Paul Winter Consort’s poetic evocations at the Dodge Poetry Festival, all those years in Waterloo Village, and now and soon again, in Newark. Coleman Barks and Jane Hirshfield, both, have experienced Consort Magic integrated into their work (and that of ancient poet, Rumi, translated and evoked by Coleman.) At Waterloo, ‘the big tent’ seemed to levitate during these juxtapositions. In Princeton University Chape, as during Winter’s Solstice Rituals at St. John-the-Divine in Manhattan, apses and naves seem to surge with sacred waters, the venerable stones themselves seem to take on volume, as known yet always unexpected Consort tones surge and ebb around visitors.
Firestone Library Image from Internet The Consort concert in the chapel begins at 7 p.m. The Meet-the-Artists Reception and Signing in Firestone Library takes place from 8:30 - 9:30. This will be a night of the blending of paradigms, all for the cause of nature. Tickets, supporting D&R Greenway’s Preservation and Stewardship Mission, may be phoned in at $!5 (Open Seating) and $35 (Reserved Seating) to Princeton University Ticketing. 609-2584TIX, or 258-48489 between 12 and 6. CDs and Books will be on sale at the evet. For $75 Reserved Seating, followed by the Meet-the-Artists Reception and Signing in Firestone Library, phone D&R Greenway at 609-924-4646. OK to leave message with credit card details and phone and address information. Note, performance is in the Chapel off Washington Road, on the University Campus, not at D&R Greenway. Ticket information will be mailed upon receipt of funds. Checks are made out to D&R Greenway Land Trust and mailed to One Preservation Place, Princeton 08540. Poet Jane Hersfield was graduated in Princeton University’s first class to welcome women. She describes herself, as a freshman, as “that entirely naive and deeply shy young woman.” Jane muses upon what her freshman self would have thought, had she been told that “I would be returning to read my poems in such a space, [University Chapel], let alone in the company of the transcendentally gorgeous Paul Winter Consort, whose music makes a chapel all on its own.” Baffled, as are many of us, that “the acutely felt environmental awareness of spring 1970 remains still under-realized,” Jane expresses gratitude that Scott and Hella McVay and D&R Greenway are bringing this event into being. “For me, [she focuses on] the awareness of the interconnection of all life on this planet, and the sense of responsibility that emerges from that awareness,” which Jane Hirsfield terms “polestar things.” Paul Winter generously ‘piped’ D&R Greenways Poets of the Trail to the podium, when the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail opened upon the land trust’s grounds in Greenway Meadows. Never did his saxophone sound more sweetly than upon that golden evening, beneath century-old trees, with wind and birds on the wing as accompaniment. 48 poems await visitors on that trail, any time, whether or not D&R Greenway is hard at work in its 19th-century (Robert Wood Johnson’s) working barn. The evocative trail rises among stately sycamores, opens out into warm-season grasses. It curves along a gentle ridge from which the Sourland Mountains are visible, then turns and returns to an oak that could be the sister of the Merer Oak. The trail is punctuated with rustic benches for contemplation. Jane Hirshfield’s Zen consciousness is right at home on the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail in Greenway Meadows. Her voice and presence will lend new and unique echoes to the mellifluous notes rising from Paul Winter and his Consort. As with his music with the whales, the cause of nature will be furthered in the chapel on October 10 - do join us! HERE IS OUR OFFICIAL ENTIRE RELEASE: Princeton University Chapel October 10 for D&R Greenway Fund-raiser Paul Winter Consort and Poet Jane Hirshfield Princeton, NJ – D&R Greenway Land Trust invites the public to hear Paul Winter, with his Consort, interweaving their iconic music with the soul-stirring words of poet Jane Hirshfield, on Wednesday, October 10. ‘Music and Poetry of the Earth’ will unfold in the Princeton University Chapel, beginning at 7 p.m. Jane Hirshfield’s books and the Consort’s CDs will be available for purchase after the performance. A meet-the-artists reception in Firestone Library will follow, from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m. Reception fees benefit the preservation mission of D&R Greenway Land Trust. [www.drgreenway.org – 609-924-4646]
Tickets for reserved performance seating, –which include the Meet-the-Artists Reception, where books and CDs will be signed, cost $75. Reservations are available directly through D&R Greenway Land Trust:(609) 924-4646. Credit cards are accepted for phone orders, or checks made payable to D&R Greenway Land Trust. For [non-reception] performance seating, ($35) and ($15) General Admission seating, call Princeton University at 609-258-9220. To order $35 and $15 tickets on-line: http://www.princeton.edu/utickets/, or arrange in person at the Frist Campus Center Ticket Office, Monday-Friday, from noon-6 pm.
‘Music and Poetry of the Earth’ is co-sponsored by the Princeton University Chapel, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, and Scott & Hella McVay. Scott McVay is a co-founder of the Dodge Poetry Festival, where the Paul Winter Consort traditionally performs with poets. Winter and Hirshfield first performed together at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival. Hirshfield will be a featured poet at the Festival at NJPAC in Newark, October 11 and 12.
Coming to Princeton is a natural for Jane Hirshfield, who graduated in Princeton University’s first class that welcomed women. Inspired by both Eastern and Western poetry, Hirshfield’s work utilizes a short form, hinging on a singular turning point or moment of arresting insight. “It is a pleasure and a privilege to join the Paul Winter Consort and broader community in support of D&R Greenway and its work in preserving and making available open space in central New Jersey,” says Hirshfield.
Paul Winter declares, “I am excited about performing in the magnificent chapel, with its magical acoustics.” The realm of this stellar musician has long embraced cultures and creatures of the entire earth, explaining his attunement D&R Greenway’s mission: “I have admired their work since I had the privilege of playing at the opening of the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail there in 2010. I feel a deep resonance with this well-run organization’s efforts to preserve land in central New Jersey — more than 17,000 acres! My collaborations with the McVays go back to the ’70s, with our mutual interest in whales and poetry. This we have celebrated during twenty-five years of collaborations at the Dodge Poetry Festival.”
BACKGROUND Paul Winter, Paul Winter Consort
Paul Winter credits the songs of the humpback whales for opening the door for the six-time Grammy-award winning Consort, in the late 1960s, to what he refers to as “the greater symphony of the Earth.” Since then, the extraordinary voices of whales, as well as those of wolves, eagles, elk, loon, and a score of other creatures have become part of the Consort’s celebrations, awakening people to the plight of endangered species. Winter’s tours and recording expeditions have taken him to fifty-two countries and to wilderness areas on six continents. The musician has traveled on rafts, dog sleds, horses, kayaks, tug-boats, and Land Rovers. The Consort’s new work, launched last spring, Flyways, celebrates the immense bird migration from Africa through the mid-East to Eurasia.
As artists-in-residence at the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, New York’s St. John the Divine, the Consort has for three decades presented annual Winter and Summer Solstice Celebrations, as well as the ecological liturgical work, Missa Gaia/Earth Mass. Winter has performed in major concert halls around the world, including Washington’s National Cathedral, the Grand Canyon and the Negev Desert.
Jane Hirshfield
Poet Laureate Kay Ryan describes Jane Hirshfield as “a writer who demonstrates in every possible way that this life matters.” During her twenties, she was a full-time student of Zen for eight years, three of them in a monastery in silence. She is featured, with W.S. Merwin, –recent U.S. Poet Laureate–, and His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in the PBS special, The Buddha. Hirshfield has authored nine collections of poetry; an anthology of women poets in praise of the sacred; and a group of essays on entering the mind of poetry, among other works. Jane Hirshfield is a powerful reader of poetry and interview subject. She has been featured in two Bill Moyers PBS television specials, Fooling With Words and Sound of Poetry. In 2012, Hirshfield was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
“Tree” from Given Sugar, Given Salt (2002), Jane Hirshfield
Tree
It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house.
Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose.
That great calm being, This clutter of soup pots and books –
Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
The Princeton University Chapel
Completed in 1928, the Princeton University Chapel is the third largest university chapel in the world. The Tudor Gothic building underwent a $10 million restoration in 2000-2002. There are more than 10,000 square feet of stained glass, as well as wood carvings and stonework. The chapel is listed as one of the great acoustic spaces of the U.S. and Canada, by the American Choral Directors Association. D&R Greenway Land Trust Founded in 1989, the mission of D&R Greenway Land Trust is to preserve and protect a permanent network of natural lands and open spaces, creating conditions for a healthy and diverse environment. It provides the public with appropriate access to these lands, encouraging active lifestyles and a greater appreciation of the natural world. D&R Greenway Land Trust also works to inspire a conservation ethic, promoting policies, educational programs and partnerships that result in a public commitment to land preservation and stewardship. In its 23 years, the Land Trust has preserved 243 properties, or 17,126 acres, valued at over $360 million. For more information, visit www.drgreenway.org Carolyn F. Edelmann, Community Relations Associate D&R Greenway Land Trust “In wildness is the preservation of the world” Packet Nature Blog: NJ WILD: www.packetinsider.com/blog/nature/ Princeton Patch Post: The Nature of Princeton
Short-Eared Owl, Winter, Pole Farm by Brenda Jones Locals know that U.S. 1 [Business] Newspaper miraculously turns itself over to creativity for two weeks of every summer. Rich Rein calls it “The Fiction Issue,” but it is richly studded with poetry. To their publication party, everyone is invited (www.princetoninfo.com); all who submitted are encouraged to attend; all writers present are introduced, but only the poets read. Each year, I reach out to D&R Greenway’s Poets of Preservation, urging them to submit. One never EVER knows if one’s work will appear. But, to my delight, standing in Lucy’s Ravioli Kitchen waiting to pay for scrumptious homemade pasta on Friday, I discovered that the U.S. 1 Fiction Issue editors had indeed selected my poem, “Owl Pellets”, for inclusion in this summer’s issue. Pick up a (free) copy of this lively publication, over the next few weeks. I find mine, usually, at Main Street Cafe in Kingston, or the little coffee shop next to the Post Office of Rocky Hill. I keep a copy to savor over the weeks ahead, and bring some home to send to family and friends in other states. It’s pretty rare that a business publication honors pure creativity. i’ve been grateful to Rich Rein, since he founded this newspaper about which “they said it couldn’t be done”, decades ago. For many years, I wrote for them on nature, history, travel and poetry, especially in and of New Jersey. Here is “Owl Pellets,” written about the Hamilton/Trenton/Bordentown Marsh, which I so cherish, down where all those pylons otherwise support superhighways such as Route 1, 295, and tracks for the spiffy River Line Train. What intrigues me about this work is that it was written either the day of my hip operation or the day after, at what used to be Princeton Medical Center. A lonnnnngggg way from a marsh, let alone Indians… OWL PELLETS
all along the downed log in Trenton’s old marsh
I mean really old as in ten thousand years of Lenni Lenape presence a coalescence of tribes after the long months begun by hunger’s moon
the rising of new pickerel weed arrayed along greening banks signals departure from inland hunting lives to sea gathering
but first, this time together in the Marsh
I descend to the log studying, not touching pierced silvery ovals of bone / feather / fur
they seem arranged for rituals
by men with lithe cinnamon bodies
kneeling in loin cloths of old deerskin and new beads
CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN (written in hospital – November, 2011) U.S. 1 Newspaper Summer Fiction Issue, 2012
It’s impossible for me to believe scenes of great white sharks off Chatham, Massachusetts. That priceless working fishing port served as my essential haven throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. It was a place of weathered grey cottages with white shutters, pink roses on the picket fences. Its winding Oyster River used to be famous for that bivalve, possibly my favorite food. Anything in the waters there was food for us, not the other way ’round! Daily beach walks from our [Nantucket] Sound-side front door to Harding’s Beach Light revealed rarities, from the red-necked phalarope circling and circling in the Sound to the Hudsonian godwits who pranced around us as we set out. The morning I showed the girls the long-tailed jaeger in the Peterson’s Guide — hovering over a dune — we found one doing exactly that down by the Light. The morning after I read of crows mobbing eagles - to look for raptors when one hears that cacophony — I watched crows drive an American bald eagle all the way back from the Light to Harding’s Woods. I recall it only took the eagle 5 or 6 wingbeats to cover what stretched for us for an hour or more. Down on the hard sand at low tide, back on the high road with the heather and horned larks — all creatures were blessings in Chatham. Life in Chatham was simplicity itself, a barefoot existence, –full of sweetness in those who shared our cottage and the very local foods we ate, especially Nickerson’s Fisheries fish. In all our long restorative summers, I never recall the ‘S-word’. Even when we went whale-watching off Provincetown, I remember shearwaters as much as whales. But no sharks. Of any sort. Never, flying from “Chatham Municipal” to Nantucket or the Vineyard. No sharks in headlines, either. “Clam Wars” were all the rage in Chatham summers.
Great White Shark, David Watts, Seapics Let alone seals! How can seals have become the norm in Chatham on Cape Cod? How can it be that they lure great white sharks this often and this close to shore?
My NJ WILD readers know my stand on (the increasingly ignored, as increasingly experienced) climate change. So you know my theory - ocean currents changed by melting glaciers and altered temperatures bring sharks closer to shore, and not only in Chatham. And not only this summer… Change your carbon footprint before it is absolutely too late! What does it take to waken us? [The two nameless photos have no credits on Internet...] Meanwhile, here are two new poems triggered by shark news. The first one describes shark alerts along the Jersey Shore, when we summered at Normandy Beach. ** DIFFERENCE **
lifeguards taught us how to tell the difference between sharks and dolphins
** –bronzed gods high in their whitewashed towers they’d raise firm hands to replicate
** sinuous curls of dolphin fins beyond the ninth wave
** relentless cleave of shark fins –executioner’s blades
CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN June 21, 2012
VISITORS ** there are two great whites off the coast of Chatham ** coursing among infamous shoals which keep her fishermen shorebound but for one tide each day ** Chatham, haven in the grim years place of my poet love –sea-change –first outrageousness ** as essential as these behemoths foraging, frolicking ** beyond the ninth wave knowing they are somehow home
CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN June 24, 2012
This is truly NJ WILD - my encounter with a snake whose species was new to me, in The Glades, in the Delaware Bayshore Region. This poem is quite literal — I truly did come upon this gleaming creature, with two friends who advised caution, shall we say. In effect, they were convinced we needed to turn around. My response was quite different. I have never seen a more irresistible reptile. Now I understand Eve… PASSION
I am in love with the black rat snake sinuous and glossy as though sewn of patent leather *
very much at home here twined among tree roots in the preserve called “Glades” near our Delaware Bay
* I never knew how dark could gleam how menace can appeal *
my friends flinch whisper “cottonmouth” as I bend toward him
* it’s all I can do not to trace each brilliant facet
reach toward the surge that was his morning meal
all that keeps this handsome fellow somnolent and near
CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN April 2012
Daffodils of her Late Father’s Yard, by Brenda Jones Golden daffodils lift my heart, even when — as this year — all, even the white ones, burst forth at once. It’s because of Wordsworth and childhood and memorizing poems, which everyone did in those days. It’s also because I managed to plant and sustain “a crowd, a host of golden daffodils” under my Norway maples, in my Braebrun-off-Snowden days. Those sprightly green tips, then the full resplendent blooms, would peek, then unfold, in the midst of a broad expanse of periwinkle, which fortuitously bloomed at the same time. The gardeners were quick to warn me, “Nothing grows under a Norway.” But feeding with Bovung, protecting with peat moss, and leaving winter leaves on til first tips emerged proved those traditionaly gardeners quite wrong. Once the “little telephones” were present, my favorite task was to go outdoors early, while the girls were still asleep, into that auric display. I would through lavender blue stars of myrtle (the periwinkle), picking an array while the dew was still on them. I had started my daffodil garden, as everyone does, with “King Alfred”. But, by the end of my Braeburn time, we had daffs with cups of all colors, –even coral and some an exquisite lime green. I’d put bouquets into pewter, into pottery, into antique silver. I’d tuck them everywhere, –on the family room hearth; on the table where we all sat to eat and converse each night; in each daughter’s room. It wasn’t spring until the daffodils. Lately, I’ve been re-reading Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal, which she kept up until her beloved brother married Mary — evidently an horrendous shock to his sister. What a naturalist she was, before there was such a phrase! How those hills and vales, copses and groves, brooks and fells of the Lake District nourished her soul. And mine, vicariously with them and with Diane and Catherine in memory. Did you know that Dorothy’s brother took many of the images, if not the exact words, for his legendary daffodil poem from Dorothy’s description in her Grasmere Journal? My girls, at 9 and 10, found this downright plagiarism. I wasn’t a poet when we tromped every path that mattered to Dorothy, William and Coleridge. So I couldn’t explain then distillation and expansion which William brought to the scene. Here’s Dorothy’s paragraph. What do YOU think? Thursday, the 15th (April): “I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their head upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing, ever changing. The wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway.” DaffodilsI wandered lonely as a cloud Continuous as the stars that shine The waves beside them danced; but they I gazed–and gazed–but little thought For oft, when on my couch I lie
William Wordsworth
Lake Carnegie Sculler and American Bald Eagle, Brenda Jones NJ WILD readers know that Ilene Dube, former Packet Time Off Editor, urged me to begin this blog, featuring nature, poetry and preservation. Over the years, I freely confess, preservation has edged out poetry in these ‘pages’… This will be remedied, –live–, shortly: On April 12, beginning at 5:30 p.m., D&R Greenway will constellate all three facets of my NJ WILD mandate: Poetry/Nature/Preservation at a lively reception and reading. Poets will read their work, astutely chosen by Lois and Lee Harrod at One Preservation Place, off Rosedale Road in Princeton. Guests are welcome to come early and walk the Scott and Hella McVay Poetry Trail, behind D&R Greenway, with its 48 nature-themed poems of many centuries, and array of welcoming benches. The public is invited to this free reception and reading on April 12, beginning at 5:30. Please write rsvp@drgreenway.org or call 609-924-4646 to register. Poets are welcome whether or not their work has been selected.
NJ WILD Beauty, Island Beach cfe Our editors have legendary reputations as professors at The College of New Jersey. Lois is a much published poet in her own right; One of the founding members of Princeton’s Cool Women Poets, Lois is a gifted publisher of poetry for that storied group and other individuals. Both Lois and Lee have served as editors and hosts for previous D&R Greenway Poets of Preservation reception/readings. Poet and flautist Judith McNally will welcome guests with her mellifuous music, also a D&R Greenway Poets of Preservation tradition.
Brenda Jones, Brant Sipping Barnegat Bay Waters Each Poetry of Preservation night is linked to the Land Trust’s current art exhibition — in this case, water. All art on the walls of the Marie L. Matthews Galleries is for sale, a percentage supporting D&R Greenway’s preservation and stewardship mission.
Towpath Tranquility - Why Preserve NJ Land and Water cfe As Poetry Coordinator for submissions, I have received, printed, alphabetized and sent a treasure trove of works on water to our talented editors. Early on, it became apparent that two binders would be essential to hold all the fine strong work that surged into D&R Greenway before the March 22 deadline. I gave myself a luxurious European-like afternoon at Hopewell’s Boro Bean, sipping and reading (although my responses to these poems carry no weight whatsoever.) I was wafted from our canal to the Pacific off the coast of Oregon, to Ireland, no less, in the course of those delicious poetic explorations.
Brenda Jones - D&R Canal Above Mapleton Fishing Bridge Treats are in store for all who walk through the doors of our 1900 restored barn, to concentrate on the beauties and perils of water in our time.
Pine Barrens Serotinous Cone, Brenda Jones
When Ilene Dube asked me to write NJ WILD for the Packet, she requested poetry. It’s been a long time between muse visits. I am very grateful for Muse return. Let the gift of the Muse wash over you… RECUPERANT
I long to slip into peat water ***
watch my long legs turn orange, then burnt sienna bathed in tannins of old leaves and newly desiccated needles
having steeped over the centuries between primordial banks ***
I belong to the Pines and the peat –striding or swimming– requiring these levels –silent liquidities –eloquent darkness even on bright days ***
over there, on a low branch a slim snake twines somnolent and sure
*** overhead, in the pine tops winds echo ocean near yet far ***
time keeps these waters warm enough to welcome legs too long denied the Pinelands ***
see how my limbs flicker and flash –burnished in peatwater –flames in the depths
CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN February, 2012
***
Pine Barrens Dock and Stream, Brenda Jones
Cape May Lighthouse, NJ
Titmouse in Snowstorm, Brenda Jones NJ WILD readers know, my favorite time to be anywhere is off-season. In 2009 I had chosen to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at Cape May. My key birding/hiking/art and travel buddy, Janet Black, and I had this urgent need to flee the commercial madness which had come to overwhelm this once sacred season. The fiercest concern, on all channels during this week’s blizzard, was not health or safety - but o, dear! — people can’t get to the malls! Christ was not born to turn balance sheets from red to black. We went to seek the elemental, even the primal. I, personally was starved for limitlessness. We both needed birds, — handsome birds, large birds, unexpected birds, birds dealing boldly and successfully with elements, putting humans to shame. Birds making us catch our breath over their beauty, their fearlessness, their deft way with the wind. Somewhere out beyond the first lines of waves, long-tailed ducks were bobbing and feeding. Sometimes, if we were very lucky, elegant gannets arrowed right over our heads, or threaded their way above the crests. Yes, we knew the trails, the hot spots, from Sunset Beach to Cape May Point to Higbee Beach. We’ve put in our time on and near the hawk watch platform, normally abuzz - it would be still for Christmas.
Cape May Bird Observatory post captures their Hawk Watch Platform post-blizzard We knew where to hike (from the jetty to the light) in a benevolent season, when we were sometimes accompanied by ruddy turnstones, living mosaics hopping along beside us as we stride. We knew where the peregrine stooped (’stooped’ is the birder’s word) upon tasty prey, from an anachronistic bunker to a freshwater pond, as sedate mute swans ignore the entire drama.
Killdeer and Snow from Cape May Bird Observatory post, post-storm We knew where monarchs clustered in autumn, on a shrub called “high tide plant.” We had favorite dune trails where we’d seen loons visibly change their plumage before our eyes. But neither of us knew what Christmas meant at New Jersey’s Cape, let alone what it means to the birds. We packed foul weather gear - we’ve used it before for Cape May Birding Weekends of 20 mile an hour winds and I swear 20 degrees, although it couldn’t have been - it was the end of May… We packed our binoculars and our Sibleys - well, they’re always in the trunk. Being writers, books and notepads went first into those suitcases. Janet’s memoir vied with her poetry. My NJ WILD held pride of place - no competition for it, these days, not even from the poetry muse. We both fled the Victorian, sought out the rustic, the local, and above all, the maritime and the avian. Down at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, at the birds’ jumping-off place to cross the Delaware Bay, the prime activity would neither be shopping til you drop, nor counting down to Christmas. Out on the windswept beaches, spirit would be near at hand. Shore birds would do their Holy Ghost thing.
Though we did not see the Christmas star, something was being born. I called it Hope. �
Olga Sergyeyeva’s Fine Art Photography evokes my beloved D&R Canal and Towpath.
Olga Sergyeyeva’s Masterpieces evoke autumn along my “Dear Canal and Towpath”:
Here is a poem which Rich Rein, founder of US 1 Newspaper, published when they honored me with an entire calendar (2006) of my canal and towpath photographs. They were slides — remember slides? So I cannot add those images to this post. But I can give you the culminating poem - perhaps the first - to grace a US 1 Calendar. Dear Canal I have lived beside you into you, my tears have dropped yet never walked out to where it seemed I saw CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN Winter 2005
As a child, a favorite in my Childcraft book of children’s poetry, had to do with, guess what! - nature. The American robin was the not-very-imaginative state bird of my Michigan. So this ‘jingle’ really spoke to me back then, in little Lathrup Village, near Detroit:
The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow And what will the robin do then, poor thing? But sit in the barn to keep himself warm and hide his head under his wing poor thing.
And what does the cardinal do ‘then’, do when north winds increasingly take over our world? A very brief answer from Brenda Jones is:
Brenda Jones Finds Cardinal Puffed Up for Winter
One of the most amusing/diverting/compelling aspects of my late-life hobby of birding is that one is always/always learning. Just when you get all the colors down, a first-year bird shows up and throws you back into uncertainty. Black-capped chickadee calls were easily mastered, and then the Carolina chickadee moved north with its more nervous vocalizations. Shapes were pretty much early in my learning process, for some reason. But, as you may have noticed, shape tends to change significantly on cold, let alone winter-windy days. Puffing their feathers adds air to down as ideal insulation. |
|
