field notes:

4.4.2003

I've been distracted. But even now with the world full of strife and turmoil, even when the gut wrenches from it, life goes on outside my window. The tides still ebb and flow, and I've neglected to write about the life that passes between those waters. Savannah sparrows madly sing: a songbird's way of fending off extinction. A spring protest.

And so it will be with me. I'll write and sing (to myself) and cook and laugh--my small way of keeping soul from being extinguished by the damping forces of despair and neglect.

one of his last poems...

Something to Declare
--William Stafford

They have never had a war big enough
to slow that pulse in the earth under
our path near that old river.

Even as a swallow swims through the air
a certain day skips and returns, hungry for
the feel and lift of the time passed by.

That was the place where I lived awhile
dragging a wing, and the spin of the world
started its tilt into where it is now.

They say that history is going on somewhere.
They say it won't stop. I have held
one picture still for a long time and waited.

This is only a little report floated
into the slow current so the wind will know
which way to come if it wants to find me.

from Passwords

posted by Lisa Thompson on 7:38 AM link | comments []

4.3.2003

So far, April has been winter revisited: the air finger-numbing, the mood of the sky changeable, and my neighbor's woodpile shrinking as quickly as if it were January. She has generously allowed me to plunder this old pile, and I'm grateful for the fuel. It's bay cut down years ago: stacked and tarped and set to wait...for me, I guess. I'm certain to be displacing lots of local creatures. Some, the spiders and centipedes and pillbugs, I've seen in my wheelbarrow, but I'm sorry to the mice, who may have to relocate: "Take heart...it's really spring and by Sunday the sun is rumored to be coming out again".

We went to Chimney Rock yesterday to check back with the elephant seals but were diverted by glorious, copious, riotous flowers. I'll post a couple of the 45 pictures I took thereof, but along with a friend I'm going to create a special section of field-notes.net for Point Reyes flowers. Maybe some more knowledgable folks can help us with identifying some of the more esoteric varieties.

By the way, the juvenile elephant seals are still hanging around. They're sharing the beaches with harbor seals and sea lions. If they wait for a fortuitous weather sign to cue them that it's time to migrate back north, I'm guessing they won't be leaving til after this next storm. I would love to be there when they all pull themselves into the waves and head out--innately knowing where to go, and when.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 5:00 PM link | comments []