Owls and Poetry

Oh, if you still come to my poor blog, thank you.  
I think there have been a shortage of really good or funny stories lately, and with it being February now, not much going on in the bird department.
The good thing about winter is the start of nesting season for Great Horned Owls.  I have been checking my local nest every day, but thus far, no eggs.  This got me thinking of a poem by Charles Baudelaire.  Les Hiboux.  


A somewhat haunting poem, yet straining to find light.
Here it is in French (which is the best way to read it of course) and below, with a selection of delicious owl photos, one of many English translations.  
Enjoy.  And go out and look for owls!


Les Hiboux
Charles Baudelaire

Sous les ifs noirs qui les abritent
Les hiboux se tiennent rangés
Ainsi que des dieux étrangers
Dardant leur oeil rouge. Ils méditent.

Sans remuer ils se tiendront
Jusqu'à l'heure mélancolique
Où, poussant le soleil oblique,
Les ténèbres s'établiront.

Leur attitude au sage enseigne
Qu'il faut en ce monde qu'il craigne
Le tumulte et le mouvement;

L'homme ivre d'une ombre qui passe
Porte toujours le châtiment
D'avoir voulu changer de place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Owls
by Charles Baudelaire

Under the overhanging yews, 
The dark owls sit in solemn state, 
Like stranger gods; by twos and twos 
Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. 

photo by Jim Anderson

Motionless thus they sit and dream 
Until that melancholy hour 
When, with the sun's last fading gleam, 
The nightly shades assume their power. 

photo by Doug Sanchez

From their still attitude the wise 
Will learn with terror to despise 
All tumult, movement, and unrest; 

For he who follows every shade, 

Carries the memory in his breast,

Of each unhappy journey made.

photo by Doug Sanchez

.

When it comes

As the third rock from our Sun hurtles through space, tilting once again on its axis to soak up the rapidly approaching warmth, my mind spins too.
The latest trip around the Sun, full of so many pages like a book.



And dispersed through my book, like chapter plates, the birds I love and respect, who also await the warmth from under a dusting of snow:



The last of the food supply with a skin of ice



gives way to moss and the antennae it throws out:



A rare blue in a flower unfurls and reaches out with fairy toes dipped in colored sugars:



A new generation will be born in a cup of softness from fur that I lovingly collected for months:




When the dogwood throws itself open in a thousand tiny glories,



fierceness gets a new face:



When it comes, the ice will fracture and our hearts and minds can expand once again, to ride the next trip around the Sun.

When it comes, I can sing again.

Pablo Neruda: "Bird"

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.



The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -


and there, night came in.


When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -



I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes
are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,



and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;


I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,



the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire

which dances out of the pollen

A poem with myco-heterotrophs

It seems fitting to showcase a favorite poem of mine with photos of myco-heterotroph plants. Why? Don't know. It just fits.

So here's Pablo Neruda's

Love Sonnet XVII:

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:

I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when your eyes close, I fall asleep.

Love is a butterfly

In the cage of a heart,
Love is a butterfly


A beautiful wisp of light.



Seeking only to grow
And to burst from darkness into the sun,
looked upon by all.


To taste and to feel,
Taking to the space between, as a prayer.


Here for a time, hoping for forever,
When even forever is not enough.


And if loss tears its wings,

Its flight continues on...

And now, something a little different

When I have nothing to post about, it feels like a waste of Internet space.
I would like to post when it's meaningful, if not to others, to myself.
And since nothing really awesome happened today, I started digging through some very, very OLD 3.5 disks from back in the day. Before Geoff, before kids...back when I was a single chick trying to make it on my own. I lived in a tiny little house (I called it The Cottage) just down the street from the doctor's office I managed. I dated, I fell in love, I was hurt.
Rinse and repeat.

When I wasn't out partying and being a general moron with my heart, I was home at my computer (a 1993 dinosaur), with a big glass of Mountain Dew and my cats.
And I wrote. Poetry, a journal, letters to people I didn't even want to see again. I went into darkness and back out so many times in those days. Lots of my poetry was written for my eyes only, but as I reclaimed myself, I started writing to express my need to get out of my head and back into LIFE.
In comparison, the poems before April 1999 were dark, full of pain, and general wallowing in self-pity. Geoff came along and my life was suddenly worth living again. Because he made me believe in the human race again with his optimism, his gentleness, his sweetness. Finally, a good man with aspirations, with a heart...that loved me for who I was, not who I thought I was.

Here's a poem from May, 1999.
It just started itself in my head after I stood in front of my fridge, playing with my Magnetic Poetry:

NATURAL PEACE

I am in a garden-dream, of

Luscious shadow, in a

Sleeping forest with elaborate music singing

A symphony for eternity.

I am picturing a delirious summer and the purple storm

With its essential rain.

The stars are whispering their crystal secrets behind

A day-time sky.

If the story is to be told, it is to be spoken of quietly,

In the realm behind the trees,

And to be found in the pink of the roses

That know the reason for the sun.

No sound but what the wind makes,

In harmony with angels captured on earth.

This is a delicate place, where the light drips onto the green,

Catching fairy-threads and gossamer under the canopy.

To sleep and dream is what the swaying of the trees

Teaches you, soothing your eyes closed with a gentle hand.

Breathe in the mist of time, that does not know the year,

But only the majesty of what it mirrors.

Lay your head there under the branches

Of what is ancient, silent and wise.

Feel the pulse of the earth in the turning of the leaves

And the lazy sweep of the clouds above the orchestra.

Here is found restful peace, in silence that is only waiting to be heard.

May 25, 1999