I am fortunate this creature found me intriguing enough to make her presence known, and elated she allowed me to photograph her. We sat together a moment, amongst the leaf-fall and gilt trees, sipping cold, sweet dew from acorn caps while admiring the advancing morning’s play of light and color. Then, without a word, she vanished. Sprites are mercurial that way.
The day —
unseasonably warm.
The sun —
a smudged, pale disk
winking
through atmospheric haze.
How did he see it?
Suspended
within erect vertical grays
of leafless limbs?
A fibrous tea-cup
extended
in the slim tree’s
thumb and forefinger.
In offering,
in invitation
to sip
the echo of Spring.
–C.Birde
A young beech gathers sunlight in its parchment leaves and whispers of an Autumn reluctant to depart.
The night sky bloomed
with color —
unexpected as song,
welcome as benediction.
Rapturous,
the descending hues
of indigo and blue,
rose madder and scarlet
kissed the fringe
of treetops gold.
“Hurry,” he urged,
so I ran —
down the walk
through the frost-edged eve
into rapidly falling dark
to stand alone
as the paean subsided
amidst soaring
cathedral
trees.
— C.Birde
Merriam Oak has let go a sheaf of bronze-bright leaves, each as large as my booted foot, or larger. To walk beneath these bare and spreading boughs is to kick through a three-season journal, each leaf an entry, while the author prepares for rest and reflection during the spare Winter days to come.
The gray day presses
against
the curved pane of my brow,
A low-pressure ache
in residence grinding
behind
my right eye.
And I —
who love the rain —
feel only the damp,
the permeating chill
that creeps into my being,
that even sleep and a cup
of good, hot tea
cannot
relieve.
— C.Birde
We walked this morning. Two bipeds, one quadruped, together breathing in a mild mid-morning.
Rattlesnake Meadow flickered with a wind’s breath that slipped between blown cattails. Snowbirds tittered and darted with sparrows too quick, too subtle for my eye to name.
A Red-tailed Hawk skimmed the meadow’s reed-sawn edge to roost in a slow-decaying tree. Patient, he surveyed the landscape. So much hidden within those pale grassy blades — I missed the Snowy Egret; I’m certain he did not.
At our walk’s end, a white-tailed deer wove ahead across our path, unconcerned by our intrusion. A fortunate start to a late-November day.
Earthbound,
grounded —
the sea stretched and foaming before us,
slope-shouldered dunes whispering
at our backs —
We stood side by side,
sand tugging toes,
necks craning
to lift squinting vision up,
to see —
To witness
myth and fancy
spread over the wide blue expanse of sky,
riding subtle, fingering breezes
at the ends of tethered lines.
— C.Birde
Sunlit maple —
An arboreal song composed in dazzling, gold-leaf splendor.
–C.Birde, 11/15
Yes.
I see the cracks,
the chips and fissures.
Tattered edges, fraying seams.
I hear the noise,
the thrum and tumult
near-constant as sea tide.
It breaks my heart.
It compels me to clear my eyes
and strengthen my resolve
to magnify those signs,
however small,
of persistent
hope and
beauty.
— C.Birde
