A liquidity moving *

A finch sits on the sunflower’s open face
as though this globe is its world.

I’ve been working on a poem for Jerry for our anniversary. Two days ago, I noticed that a lot of the poems I’ve written for him over the years (and we have been together many years) have featured birds, mentioned birds, or had a metaphor leaning heavily on birds. Well, they lend themselves to poetry; you borrow from beauty you see and know. And then there are birds.


So many birds fill the poems I give you as though the even fluttering
of years is actually wingbeat, soft whispered flutters brushing close,
hurried songs in the long days.

Then yesterday I took a pause and was working on something for the Bambina’s birthday (no spoilers, you may keep reading 💓) and discovered a few flat cat pictures on my camera and also this gorgeous finch on the sunflower’s open face.

This was taken a few weeks ago. The finch was not giving up the flower and gave me time to get my camera, change lenses, and move about the yard, what a pro. A surprising moment. And I’d forgotten it. But not the movement over the world.

Imagine living/like this: flower to flower in the bright/day.

Yesterday a squirrel was out in the same location molesting a bird feeder, gnawing into the feeder and then squeezing into feed. Jerk.

                                         
I get no respect in the yard since I relocated the flat cats. The jays know more peanuts were available when Olive and her brood were here. The squirrels knew that the bird feeders stayed almost exclusively in the backyard and were much easier to access. The cardinals, oh the cardinals, didn’t sit outside the bedroom window in the morning and complain.

I miss them too.



Ada Limón , the new US Poet Laureate, has a lovely poem that features a ground hog, I love these lines:

“…a liquidity
moving* all muscle and bristle. A groundhog
slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still
green in the morning’s shade. I watched her
munch and stand on her haunches taking such
pleasure in the watery bites.”

Such pleasure in the watery bites -- ah! The poem is called Give Me This and is available on the Academy of American Poets website.

Well, this is one of the things I’ve been doing between downpours and heat waves. Writing, and reading poetry while also thinking of those who have been flooded and damaged and lost. Watching COVID deaths go back up. Trying to stay safe and keep others safe as well.

Thanking Kansas.

Wrapping some small gifts for the man’s birthday which happens very, very, very soon and watching the birds. Making notes. Listening.

Accounting

Last Tuesday, after the last flat cat capture and the completed barricading of the deck, a lovely little doe came by to check my work. She wandered from the front yard and then slowly walked along, nibbled the lilacs, and disappeared as the fireflies started to tango under the maple. She had a beautiful reddish-gold coat that glowed. I haven’t seen a lot of deer in the neighborhood this summer, partly, I’m pretty sure, because two new fences have been built and two families have moved in that have dogs. I saw a doe cross the street one day a month or so ago as I went out to listen to the birds, it was a foggy morning and she sort of faded into the mist.

Because of the heavy rain forecast yesterday I had taken the hanging plants down and placed them on the porch. I’d also moved the pink begonia there last week after something ate the blossoms. Then this morning Jerry showed me this video from the Ring™: A visitor to our front door. A lithe nibbler tasting the plants. A bite is taken from the petunias and then a begonia and then a movement or noise is heard. I love how she just jogs away toward the lonesome pine. (Something has eaten a couple of sunflowers there; I’d watched a goldfinch out there the other day plucking petals and dining on the flowers, but a giant muncher has been at work.) The whole front of the house is overgrown right now, full of deep shade during the heat, it makes tracking birds fun. I have two hummingbird feeders out there and when the hummingbirds buzz away the only way to find them is wait for the red pulse at their throats in the shadows. I spend an inordinate amount of time standing and looking into the trees, waiting to see whatever is singing or has just flown up as I come around the house. Just a slow observation.

It’s something like what I do when I go into an office or business, except there it is more perverse, I’m not looking for an ah ha! or moment of beauty. There I am looking for what if: what if I need to get out, what if I need to hide, what if I need to run. I once went to a town hall in Klamath Falls where Senator Jeff Merkley was doing an annual visit. It was at the Oregon Institute of Technology auditorium, and I sat midway down and in the center of the theatre. A man came in, shadowed by policemen and they stood alongside the wall near where he sat. He interrupted the Senator almost immediately and when asked to hold his questions was visibly agitated. Someone behind me said that’s so and so, a name I recognized from the local paper. I got up at that point and moved to the farthest part of the room near a door that lead out into the hall and from there outside through another door that claimed to be alarmed; if I used it, I needed it to be alarmed. Anytime after that I made a more careful seat choice. (And he did approach “we need to watch this guy” status when he said “so maybe I just need to get my gun” … that’s when they escorted him out.)

So, I enter the world cautious, not on edge exactly, but paying attention to many waves of action and thought. Sometimes I do close down and only look for beauty, but it is almost 99% not human. Yes, I can run a finger over the maple seedling and then turn back to see the tree which sends its samara fluttering in the spring. Yes, I will bend as close to the cicada as possible to note its armor. Yes, I will lose myself in the yellow of the daylily or the bee buried in its skirt or watch as the dragonfly crosses the lawn, its wings catching and releasing the sun. This is just convalescence. It is just paying attention. It is attention that everyone needs to be allowed, but which even now feels like it is guarded. I don’t want to close down my humanity account because hate is corrupting it.

We are sorry to receive your notice of account closure
if you ever decide to rejoin, please let us know…

I may rejoin the day I understand how an 11-year-old
knew to cover herself in blood to survive. Is it innate
now in America, under this intense wash of violence
to hide your body under death?

Maybe soon the children will become like teen
cowbirds who one day hear the call and gather
where they learn a new song, where they learn
what it takes to endure in the form they are.

 

Part I and II, further flat cat adventures

Monday July 11, Part I

Carolina Wrens have been attempting to nest in a bucket in the garage. I appreciate the effort. We’ve seen them fly in and then quickly out and yesterday morning as I was leaving to spend the day with my cousin in Missouri (cousins on the town, thrift store crawl edition) one of those diminutive bodies flew in touched down on the bucket and then left. When I took the bucket down there were pieces of leaf and dried grass in it, silly birds. The bucket has now been emptied and turned over on the shelf, I know they can find a better place, but I think that of all the birds the thought of the wren nesting that close makes me unguardedly happy.

This morning a Northern Mockingbird was at the top of the lonely pine again with at least four songs in its repertoire. It has been there the past two days as the weather cooled a bit, the rain came. All the birds have been singing. It is also cicada time. So, a lot of music happening around the yard. But no groundhog capture yet. This is a tough one, it goes into the trap, but only so far eating the peanuts as it goes. So, I’ve put out extra peanuts into the trap and when I check it just shells. But it doesn’t flip the door. (The moral of the story is, don’t get cocky) I put my yard-cam out the Saturday night to see what was going on and brought in yesterday afternoon. I have pictures of a blue jay, a sparrow, a rabbit, a squirrel, a couple of raccoons came by in the night and then around 11AM the groundhog can be seen coming out from under the deck and then getting awfully close to the camera and sort of flipping me the bird. A cheeky character.

Tuesday July 12, Part II

Between 1124AM and 1139AM today I caught a groundhog. I had added an extra trap, many more peanuts and more camouflage. Right before lunch I took this little flat cat to a wilder area, I sang Born Free, I told it to have a good life and quit chittering at me. And then I came home. Will this be the last groundhog? Probably not, but will I be able to keep them from living under my deck? Yes. Maybe. I hope so. Will they stay out of my neighbor’s garage? That’s for my neighbor to worry about. I really have done all I need to do, all I can. He knows that peanuts work best. He has traps. Good luck to you.

Tomorrow morning we’re breaking the heat wave (again) for a day or two. Tonight, I’ll refill the last little hole that was dug out and I have some concentrated pepper spray that I will use before I head in for the night. I haven’t been putting bird feeders out for a few weeks as too many cowbirds were in the area. Once the feeders were gone, they even left the lawn – back to the prairie with you, you colonizers!

So, it is Tuesday. In the raised bed in the backyard, I have cosmos blooming, corn has come up and I just discovered while weeding that there are tomatoes blooming. A pleasant surprise as I had seen flat cats grazing there quite often.

Can't stop now, I've traveled so far*

I love those days when you fall in love again with something about the world that you’ve just missed or didn’t take time to pay attention to or just forgot about. This morning I woke to hear a bird I still don’t know, its morning song was high and low notes, chirps and a shrill whistle. It may have been more than one bird, I was quiet listening for quite a while and then slowly opened the curtain, but the rain and humidity had fogged the window and as the curtain closed the song closed as well. Around the rest of the house, I could hear cardinals and blue jays and even a mourning dove was undercutting the dawn with its low song.

This past week we’ve had another heat wave, it’s been extremely hot and extra humid, so much so that I couldn’t repair the deck where the groundhogs had been coming and going, I’d seen another adult on the lawn and saw that some of the first repairs had been dug out. I had the trap out for a bit yesterday morning but once it got warmer, I closed it, a poor little furry body didn’t need to be in there. My morning weatherman, Anthony, promises cooler temperatures and low humidity for the weekend; I’ve restocked the peanuts, look out flat cat, here I come. Then there will be a completion to the barricade which includes chicken wire and gravel and extra bricks. It won’t be very beautiful but, hopefully, effective.

This morning I had a few errands to run, it had rained overnight but no relief was really offered, so I tried to get in and out of each place quickly. While I was driving back home, I was listening to classic rock, which is a mindless, sing-along alternative to my public radio station. I can go to it when a break is needed from the endless cycle of, what? Doom. Idiocy. Dread. Death. Destruction. Well. I have the option to tune it out for a while. The song I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner was playing as I neared home, and suddenly I was lost in time, a nostalgically sweet time. This song was all over as Jerry, and I started dating. I’m sure we probably danced to it. Maybe during his command’s Navy Day Ball, where even when the music stopped, we continued dancing. I wouldn’t be surprised if a carload of us sang it as we drove around Naples one evening, played loud on the tape deck, windows down, earnestness in overdrive.

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older
Aaaah woah-ah-aah

(Now I would joke about the “Aaaah woah-ah-aah” and say I wrote that!)

Now this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
And through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far*
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
Aaaah woah-oh-ooh

How important it felt then, how it said everything, as music so often feels as though someone knew, knew your heart. I wouldn’t be able to name another song by Foreigner or any member of the band. Today though it made me stop and listen again. I pulled over, under a tree, watched some birds, sang the song loud and then headed home wanting to dance with Jerry even as the song stopped playing.

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me
I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show me

Seasonal and temporary

At the door the firefly hovered and lit, lit and hovered, moved from one door to the next looking in the window ascending toward the roof and then low toward the front walk. Was this the same insect I’d watched float around the geranium while I was out? This lone beacon crossing the shrubbery, dipping past a begonia, disappearing into that low branch of the ornamental pear. Why wasn’t it with the rest of the flares in the backyard beneath the maple? Was it just waiting to move on, to get around the cul-de-sac and find that giant light that has come early, that barrage of fireworks over by the junior high? Does the light that is seeking light care at this point that those sparks are not its society but another seasonal and temporary flash? I watch until the blaze is gone, one last signal and then it is away into the darkening night.

(photo from pexels.com)

June ends with this

We’re getting ready to enter the month of July and I have deemed myself the Groundhog Whisperer. In the past two weeks I have caught eight groundhogs and taken them to other areas. Wild areas. Areas I worry are being inundated with groundhogs. Tomorrow, I work on sealing the areas of the deck they use to access their tunnels feeling confident that I have moved or scared any others off. The last groundhog was the only one that seemed peeved, I received a number of clicking warnings. But nothing frantic. (This one was caught after ten minutes of having put the trap out, they love peanuts too much!)

During the groundhog roundup my neighbor also had a trap out, but he forgot to close it overnight and the next morning when I looked out, I could see two young raccoons looking very Chaplinesque. It was early (and I couldn’t wait for my neighbor to get up) and a day that would be hot, so I had Jerry help and we took the trap with the two convicts, spitting and growling, to the side of the house toward the ravine. I think the two raccoons had made a pack to attack me when I opened the cage but only one jumped toward me and when he saw his buddy running, he took out after him growling and biting – of course I was already headed the other way!

Mary 8 Groundhogs 0, sorry flat cats. Raccoons a draw.

Here’s a weak hand poem from the other morning.

Whatever alchemy life throws into us
like late day sun, a gold that welds memory
to the world: The sunflower near blush
as it opens its face to the light for the first
time or that moment we woke to your silence
and found you, head up in your crib, a bubble
on your tongue and a smile better than any bright
star welcoming us.

Clandestine groundhog transport

The past few days my Facebook “memories” have been full of Ursula and Zora. It was just two years ago that they came into our home. (And now almost a year since they both left. Sickness is a cruel string for cats, you can only do what you guess is right and second guess yourself, even now.) As the memories of U & Z went dim (They. Never. Go. Dim.) I began following the coming and goings of the groundhogs. Or the flat cats as I called them. Otto and Olive last year and then Olive had four kits this spring; and I have been watching them grow and explore -- until they started going into our neighbor’s garage and chewing on his car (wires) and climbing shelves – so we (neighbors, Jerry, and me) hatched a plan to 1) run them off or 2) move them.

We have found that the Internet is full of ideas about how to make a groundhog leave. After trying three of these ideas, I really think that the groundhogs have hacked the Internet and are posting these ideas as another “gotcha, you silly human”. So, we moved on to humane traps; placed in a great location and loaded with peanuts (groundhog Kryptonite) the whole family was caught and relocated within 48 hours.

The weather was quite warm, so I was very careful to check the traps often and then quickly load and transport to an out of the town wooded area. Three of the kits were trapped within six hours, which meant every time the trap closed, I had to get them quickly to their new location. I was surprised at how calm they seemed, though I’m sure their poor little hearts were beating like mad, all the more reason to get them quickly to a wild area.

The only glitch was after catching the fourth kit after I reloaded the traps with peanuts I caught a Blue Jay (as they also love peanuts). I knew something was up when I heard the racket from out back; luckily the Blue Jay didn’t panic (too) much and quickly left when I opened the door. (I will be offering a peanut tribute to these birds soon).


(Today's weak hand poem)
The small brown body
pushes against the cage.
Looks at me, not in fear
but understanding:” Who
will release you, human?”