Coming Home

FIELD NOTES.

The hellebore pokes up through the still frozen detritus of winter. Bright green, it is the only color on the swamp floor. The geese honk in their territorial wars. Breeding boundaries must be drawn. A flock of wood ducks paddles among the warring geese and swallows rise and dive, dip and fall, in search of prey too small for me to see. A fox sparrow puffs up on a branch beside me, displaying for an uninterested female. The season is young still. A merganser emerges from the cattails and a flock of geese honks in alarm, flaps its wings, and concedes the territory.

I have no reason to be here. This is not my world. I sit on a log waiting for something to happen. The red maples are budding. I examine a blossom with my hand lens. So much of my world is about optics. Microscope, hand lens, glasses, binoculars, telephoto lens. Through which lens do I perceive reality? Today this world is gray sky, black water, the dull bones of trees, and the pale grasses. Yet, it is so alive with sound and promise. Wood frogs cluck, tree frog songs reverberate in my ears, a woodpecker drums, a squirrel chatters at me, the geese honk, and the wind rustles through the cattails. A blue heron flies across the far side of the water, extends its spindly legs and stretches out its wings as it touches down on the remains of a nest floating on the water, a casualty of winter winds and ice. For twenty-five years I have watched these herons return to this nest, breed, and raise their young. The heron stays a few minutes and moves on. I wonder where it will build a new nest.

A chickadee perches on a branch beside me, scolds me, and then lands on my head. The sun burns through the gray. The dark waters of the wetland bring me home again.

Spangled Fritillary

At this time
of endless dusk
and early dawn
a hummingbird feeds
in the bee balm
and bees disappear
in the foxglove blossoms.

My wife and I watch
a great spangled fritillary
lick the orange petals
of the butterfly weed.

We peer together
at the stunning
black and orange
patter of its wings.

I ask myself,
"What is it, then,
that leads me
to love this person
standing next to me?"

Grape vines
climb the arbor
morning glories strive
to beat the slugs,
the heat, the drought.

Iris past their prime
leave so many dead heads
in the garden
lupine gone to seed
peonies abandoned.

Nothing lasts forever
I tell myself
like these flowers,
I, too, will die.

But the daisys beckon
alive with white
the lilies sizzle
in the forest light

And then,
my Who Gives A Shit voice
awakens in this dream
of summer bliss.

Because life will be gone
it never is?
I bite my tongue
Because it will be gone,
it is,
like the scarlet tanager
singing in the plum tree
like the painted turtle
basking on the log
like the bear cub
scampering across the road
it is
like a bullfrog's croak
like a garter snake
like a spider spinning
it is
like a great spangled fritillary
and the touch of my lover's hand
It is!
It is!
It is!

Dewdrops on a Hosta Leaf

Daylight
overpowers me
on the short end
of the rope
it drags me
from the comfort
of my sun-dried sheets
and the sweet oblivion
of sleep.

I face
a rose spreading
all her petals
to the sky
in a
"Take me! Take me!"
moment
her day
becomes mine
and the pleasures
of oblivion
melt into
the dewdrops
on a hosta
leaf.

Deep Time

While I watch
the otters
etrash
smolders
in a pile
in Ghana
picked clean
by children
inhaling
lead, copper,
and cancer.

Cellphones sing
Blackberries buzz
digits send lives
through cyberspace
while I watch
the rain come
a breeze rustles
the cattails
where turtles
hibernate in the mud
and the human brain
changes.

Life is a screen
filled with ads
all registered
by neurons
that fire
the brain
like so many
coyote tracks
on a beaver dam
shifting perception
of what it is
to be alive
in the rain.

We surf
for information
while information
is gleaned
from our surfing
we become bundles
of products
traded
like so many
used monitors
scavenged
for metals
by children
hungry
for life.

I watch
otters
on youtube
I see you
on skype
every minute
of every day
blood drips
one drop
at a time
while I open
my eyes
the wired
cavalry
robs
the deep
time.

I read
in the marsh
where once
the trees grew
and how
a storm
came.

I sit
with the wind
the fog
and the dark.

A woodpecker
drums
a hole
in a pine.

As I watch
the otters
the whole
world changes.

Waiting for Fox

I stare
at the frozen
pond
a blank
canvas
waiting
for the fox
to come trotting
across
the unmarked
snow.

I cannot
press a button
or click a mouse
touch a screen
and have it
appear.

I must wait
minutes, hours, days
perhaps,even a lifetime
before
one breathless moment
a figure
will emerge
from the shadows
on the bank
and trot
before
my eyes.

Coming Home

There is no fanfare
to announce the sun
only one cold squirrel
in search of food
and then a bird.

An otter slithers
from the water
shakes and slides.

A breeze stirs
through the morning
and then
the quiet
follows me home.

Photo by Mari H. Hall

Solstice Light

The pond
appears frozen
in the deep shadows
of pines
that stand
like sentinels
against the dark sky.

I play
the sun up
fingers stroke strings
one string at a time
as the sun touches
the tops
of the pines
and then bathes
the snow
in winter's
first light.

Two notes
paint new colors
and then three shine bright
before a full chorus
of crystals
brings forth
the new day
on this one morning
in a multitude
of mornings
each one a note
in the sound
of creation.

It is not
the sun rising
that is miraculous
each day,
but that
I am
Alive
in this sliver
of time
to watch
the first light
in this dance
on the ice.

Field Notes

December 14, 2009.

I wear orange so I won't get shot today. I am startled by two hunters' tracks. I am not used to human trails in my territory. I wonder if the animals can tell the difference between the hunters and me. I wonder about my own impact on the life of these woods. Do the creatures alter their ways because I am here, or am I just part of the life of this place?

I am drawn to a kill. A dead shrew. It's strange that most of the animal is still intact. It looks as though some predator played with it and then discarded it. Most animals would have devoured the whole creature. I examine the tracks. They are canine tracks. They are larger and more splayed than typical coyote tracks. They also wander all over the place. A coyote is generally more efficient in its use of energy. I find a scat. It is full of dog food. A domestic dog has been here. Another stranger in this habitat.

I cross the outlet of a beaver pond. It is running high today. A raccoon has crossed here before me. I follow it to the downed tree trunk where I like to sit and watch the pond. The sun is strong. The snow is melting. I am disoriented by the snow fleas and the chickadee that sings a mating song. It is spring in the woods today.

From where I sit, I see three beaver lodges. Two of them covered with snow in the midst of the frozen pond. The beavers have been busy at the third. There are tracks all over it. Sticks and mud are piled on top of it. I have a good view of it now that the cattails have been beaten down by the snow. The ones that remain are puffed with down and ready to burst.

I leave my perch and make my way through the cattails to the edge of the marsh. The snow is heavy and wet like spring snow. It gives easily beneath my snowshoes. A thicket of black alder with its red berries reminds me that it is December and winter is still ahead. I pass through a stand of laurel and a spider, flying through the air, lands on my pants. I watch it as it puts out feelers and explores this new territory. It climbs onto the spores of a cinnamon fern and I move on into the tall white pines.

There are middens of pine cones everywhere. The red squirrels have been busy preparing for winter. We all have our rituals. The squirrels, the beavers, the raccoons, and the spider. My firewood is stacked and I have chocolate in the cupboards. It is December and winter is still ahead.

Hunting Season

A man was shot
in my woods
yesterday.

He said,
"Some asshole
thought I was
an orange deer."

The stillness
of my morning
is shattered
by this dance
of predator
and prey.

There is a stranger
on my paths
today.
Will he pause
beneath the bear tree?
Will he watch
the otters play?

I see the figures
drawn in caves.
I hear the drums
that call the men
to chase.
The fires burn.
The meat is hung
and winter's cold
is staved.

We eat.
We live.

The bobcat,
fisher, fox,
coyote, otter
mink and man
are partners all
with deer and mouse
squirrel, rabbit,
weasel, hare.

We eat.
We live.

I see his tracks.
He is my buck.
I know his eyes.
I know his bed.

There is a stranger
in our woods
today.

I hold
my breath
and wait.

Field Notes

I watch otters play as a merganser, with her ruddy hood, touches down beside the beaver lodge. The pond is still, but I listen to the high waters of yesterday's rain rushing through the cattails. A marsh wren flits through the thicket busily picking the shrubs for seeds. It is morning in the wetlands. The sun has called us out into this world where one hundred thousand Chinese workers rise from their dormitory beds to assemble ipods for seventy cents an hour while I sit and watch otters play.
In a world where everything is measured by its economic value, an ipod sells for three hundred dollars. The uplands around this marsh have been logged. Their value is in board feet. At one time sheep grazed here. Seventy percent of New England was fields until the market fell out of merino wool and the pastures became forests again. Tomorrow these woods may become renewable energy for biomass plants that consume fifteen hundred tons of wood a day. Economy determines landscape.
An otter, snaking in and out of the dark waters, herds a lumbering beaver towards its lodge. The beavers have thrived here after they were trapped to near extinction. Their pelts were once the preferred currency of the colonies until the market fell out of beaver hats. Today they are aquatic rodents that must be relocated because they threaten the preveailing economic activity. Their meat is prized only by fishers and coyotes. The price for their pelts is too low to offsett the difficulties of trapping.
Hunters come to these woods with their shotguns for ducks, turkeys, bears, moose and deer. These animals are managed. They have economic value. And now, the cattails have disappeared into dollar signs and the rushing brook has become an advertising jingle. Nobody knows how many otters live in this pond. Nobody knows the size of their range. They're here with their rolls and their slides. They eat the fish that no one desires. They play in this world where an ipod is more valuable than forest or a wetland.
The otters play as a woodpecker tap tap taps high in a pine and a flock of geese honks overhead on their way to warm lands. They play.

Google Earth

I have lost
track
of the moon
waxing and waning
in me.

The sun
rises and sets
in the glare
of the computer
screen.

I cannot google
the pull
of the tides
or the circle
of the earth
from spring
to fall
and back
again.

I cannot walk
barefoot
on the embers
of a fire
with all
that is lost
to me
in the pixels
of this monitor.

I no longer
lie in an open
meadow
as a star
carrying
the dust
of other
planets
bursts
open
the night.

I google earth
and die.

Morning Light

I strike
a match.

Fire
catches me
stumbling
from the darkness
of warm slumber.

It is elemental.
It is basic.
It is magic.

My eyes stare
into ancient
memories.

Red twists orange
yellow licks
away the night
meat sizzles
water boils
sugar explodes
witches burn
on embers
from my hand.

I am caught
I am caught
I am caught
in every cell
of every body
burning.

All in one
morning.
All with one
match.

It is elemental.
It is basic.
It is magic
that bursts
from the remnant
of the sun
in a volcano
of molten lava
rising from the
magma of the earth
this fire
shapes
the ground
I walk.

All in one
morning.
All with one
match.

Soundtrack

One two three
four five six
a hammer cuts
through
the early morning
in one two three
four five six
rests
one two three
four five six
the nail
is driven

"What is he building?"
I wonder
as I split
through the ferns
turning golden
and search
for a trail
to follow.

One two three
four five six
noise takes
my thoughts
One two three
four five six
in the quiet
morning
the geese honk.

I stand
in a thicket
of red alder
click click click
one bird rustles the leaves
click click click
chip chip chip
two birds
then three
white-throated sparrows
stop
to feed
in this swamp
click click click
chip chip chip
tic tic tic.

And then the commerce begins.
Cars and trucks on the roads
people going to work
swish swish whoosh whoosh
sputter clank bang
gears change on the hill
morning has broken
the soundtrack
wails.

There is no place
in the continental
United States
that is more
than twenty-one miles
from a road.
swish swish whoosh whoosh
sputter clank bang.

Sound travels
to a pile of feathers
where a creature
has feasted
A wood chipper
a leaf blower
a lawn mower
a siren
that won't quit
whirr whirr whirr
grr grr grr
whirr whirr whirr
"How loud is this noise,"
I wonder
"on the ears
of the forest?"

Whirr whirr whirr
the leaf blower rings
drone drone drone
a plane flies
low over the waters
filled with fall colors
whirr whirr whirr
drone drone drone
a chainsaw chimes in
ayi ayi ayi
in triplets agian
the engine grinds
on the drums
of my ears
three wood ducks
pick their way
through the light
the symphony rages
whirr whirr whirr
a duck quacks
the airplane drone dies
whirr whirr whirr
keeps keeping on.

Otter scat
blocks a deer path
the chainsaw stops
whirr whirr whirr
the leaf blower
groans on.

How loud
is this noise
on the ears
of these woods?

A beaver's hearing
is seven times
more sensitve
than mine.

A coyote
locates
its pack
by sound.

Birds mark
their territory
with song.

whirr whirr whirr
the leaf blower
drones on
the lawn mower
the wood chipper
the chainsaw
beep beep beep
a big truck backs up
beep beep beep
rouses me in my dreams
whirr whirr whirr
the triplets go on
drone groan
whirr
one two three
four five six
beep beep beep.

Indian Pipe
photo by Mari H. Hall

A Tale of Two Orchids

Epipactus Helleborine
Platanthera Psycodes

Orchids both
descended from a grain
of pollen
borne on the wing
of a stingless bee
captured in the resin
of a tree
twenty million years ago.

Twenty million years ago
and they were old then
trampled long before
by dinosaurs.
the family orchids
burst upon a landscape
human eyes have never known.

Epipactus helleborine
Platanthera psycodes
orchids both
blossoming
like testes
on this summer day
in these my woods
where I stand
in a sea of ferns
my senses charmed
by a single tongue
of purple
dripping dewdrops
one by one
like crystals
on the prism
of my lens.

Platanthera psycodes,
the psychotic
psychedelic
of a plant
ignites
these green ferns.
This Small Purple Fringed Orchid
in my magnifying glass of colors
could melt away
the pain of childbirth
and soothe the tired calves
of a people
who walked these hills
before the white man came.

Platanthera psycodes
Epipactus helleborine
members both
of the family orchids
thousands strong
on every continent
surviving only
through the grace
of mushrooms
and sweet solitude.

Helleborine
roadside orchid
of the tiny blossoms
green and brown
and maybe yellow
to some eyes.

Helleborine
carried to these my woods
by a European
just a century ago
looking now
for that singular alliance
berween fungi,
seed, and light.

Helleborine
just another family orchid
in the streets of downtown Boston
and Karachi, Pakistan.
High in the Himalaya.
Russia, Bhutan, Cyprus,
Turkey, Lebanon,
it knows no bounds
but the grace of mushrooms
and sweet solitude.

Epipactus helleborine
Platanthera psycodes
(now I know their Latin names)
Orchids both
they bloom today.

In the presence
of these plants
plagues have come and gone
wars been lost and won,
mountains moved and children born,
men have sailed the seas
in search of gold and God,
walked on the moon
and launched rockets off to Mars,
we have settled lands
and started farms
in the presence of these plants
we baptize our young
we pray for ourselves
we bury our dead,
in the presence of these plants
we laugh, we sing, we dance
in the presence of these plants
the family orchids
love seeks
a singular alliance
between flesh and soul and life.

And here,
in these my woods today,
two orchids bloom.

Field Notes

07.20.09
I am sitting on the logged stump of a once great white pine, in the midst of laurel, royal ferns, marsh ferns, and beech tree stump sprouts. The beavers have created an opening in the canopy here. I turn my face to the sun. A cherry tree that they felled is hung up against a red maple. This place has become a crossroads in the thicket of swamp that surrounds me. I can hear the blue herons cackling on the marsh, the yellowthroat is defending his territory, a bull frog twangs. The air sticks to my skin. There is moisture everywhere and yet there are no mosquitoes. It is strange. They are such a part of this landscape, I wonder why they are missing. There are very few bats this year. White nose syndrome has decimated their population. They eat mosquitoes. There are also fewer swallows. They, too, eat mosquitoes. It has rained constantly. The mosquitoes should be unbearable. Yet there are very few. What does that mean for the habitat as a whole? Is that why there are fewer swallows? What role do mosquitoes play in the ecology of this wetland? They are a nuisance. A danger even, with encepalitis, malaria, and West Nile virus, but they are more a part of this place than I am. Where are they?

There is coyote scat beside me on the stump. There is gold thread at my feet. There is such green abundance all about me, that it overwhelms me. I am at a loss for words in the thick of this northern rain forest. The longer I sit, the more I see, the more I hear, the more I become a part of these woods. This is my neighborhood. My Broadway and 92nd street. My Southie. My barrio. How many people on this planet are sitting in green this morning?

A beech leaf drifts gently to the floor. Why did it fall? There is a reason for everything here. A laurel leaf beside me has been chewed. There is a bird dropping beside it. I followed a bear's trail to this place. This clearing is alive with stories. A logger, the beavers, a moose, birds, bears, deer, and insects unknown and too numerous to count. I could spend a lifetime in this universe and still not know it.
A bumble bee buzzes by.

This is my laboratory. This is my study. This is my office. My camo is my business suit. A noise beside me startles me and my heart jumps. My skin crawls. A rush of adrenaline surges through me. What will I do if it is a bear? I know they are safe, but they are big and they are wild. Walk backwards slowly all the books say. Whatever you do, don't run. But I can't get the fact out of my brain that black bears like to play ball with human heads. A breeze rustles the cattails and then the beech leaves. A mosquito scouts my hand for a place to drill. I pack my pen and slip back into the green.

Field Notes

07.11.09
Cattails rustle in the breeze, the only movement on the marsh this morning. Sounds of an angry duck. A couple of bullfrogs. A pair of yellow-throated warblers guarding their nest in the shrub willows. I sit on the bank and smell the warmth coming off the water. A rich earthy scent of moisture and decay. I know that nothing will reveal itself until I become a part of the landscape. I must be still and wait, inspite of the mosquitoes. That is what it is to be a naturalist. There are two basic ingredients. One, intense curiosity, and two, the ability to sit quietly and observe.

I have my perches in these woods. I have followed a beaver trail to this open spot above the marsh. A chorus of bullfrogs draws my attention. I have not heard as many in one spot in a long time.

The cattails have both male and female parts now. It is time to collect pollen for pancakes. The wind picks up and blows the mosquitoes away. Small clouds of yellow pollen rise like smoke from the cattail spike. Pollination occurs before my eyes as the breeze dies and the pollen settles on the lower female part of the spike. I think about moving on to my next station, where I can get a better look at the entire marsh, but I am reluctant to alert the neighborhood to my presence again as everything has settled back into its routine.

It is so beautiful here. That, too, is part of the experience. We were put here on this earth to witness beauty, and I must acknowledge my own rapture. A goldfinch squeaks above me.

I move on and get caught up in a heron feeding ritual before I can even get to my next stop. Their cackling calls me and I watch the three juveniles follow an adult to the edge of a beaver lodge. There is a huge commotion. Beaks clack as they vie for food from the adult's mouth. My arms grow tired holding the binoculars as the clacking and cackling continues. The adult regurgitates on a pile of mud and sticks and there is a feeding frenzy as the gangly young ones go for it. The adult raises its head above the fray and the youngsters are up once again reaching for its beak. They are very demanding in their pursuit of food. I imagine the adult must feel a bit like a mother who is ready for her kids to leave home and fend for themselves. The adult finally departs and the three juveniles stay behind on the lodge. I relax my watch until I hear the cackling once again and another adult comes swooping in. The feeding is not over yet. Once again the clacking of beaks ensues. The regurgitation. The feeding frenzy. But this adult does not have the patience of the first one and escapes the quickly escapes the clutch of the chicks. Once sated, the young ones quietly disperse. The first flies up over the waters and the nest, defecates in the air, and then alights on a log not far from the beaver lodge. An adult comes to sit with it, but doesn't stay long. The two other juveniles hang together on the lodge, one at each end. Stillness returns to the marsh. Two wood ducks parade past. Two turtles sun on a rock, too far away for my binoculars to identify them.

The clouds move in. I must get home to get my laundry off the line. I take one last sweep with my binoculars and move on my way. I am not a part of this world. I know.

Bear Bones

Bear bones and Bach
turn Sunday
into ordered fragments
of sound anatomy.

"I hate Nature."
I tell my wife
when the cat
deposits a bird
on the kitchen floor.

I Hate Nature.

I sit
my back against
a hemlock
scarred by claws.

I trace
the tiny teeth marks
on the body
of a bear's bone.

A genius
strikes a note
on a grand piano
with its legs cut short.

One note.

We are both
predator and prey
all life must eat
like the cat
at my feet
and the bear
whose bones
I hold
like the genius
and me.

Life thrives on death.

I am cursed
because I know that.

The pianist
strikes another note.

I watch
a merganser
and her hooded chicks
run on water.
Most of them will die
before they fly.

I Hate Nature.

I hate him
because he takes
the order from my life.

Predator and prey
do not exist.
Strong and weak
we all die
just the same.

Yet sound
lives on forever
one note
one note
one note
echoing
through
time.

GUTs

The Grand Unification Theory:
at extremely high energy
everything becomes One.

I stare
at a rock wall
ten thousand feet
of red layers
fill all space
before me.

Particles
spin and polarize
everything becomes real
when differences are measured.

The smell of death
rises from a corpse
in the first heat
of spring.

Each point in space
is a simple harmonic oscillator
even a vacuum
has a vastly complex structure.

A massive star
explodes
in a burst of energy
ten seconds long
that travels
thirteen billion
light years
through 95 percent
of all existence
of all time and space
through all forms
of matter
energy
and momentum
to meet us
four hundred years
after Galileo
first gazed
through the lens
of a telescope.

This star
born of an infant universe
was thirty times
the size of our sun
one million years old
it died
600 million years
after energy
coalesced in one
Big Bang.

This universe
this home
feeds on dark energy
that expands
while the rock
before me rises
inch by inch
second by second
into something
greater than itself.

When one of a pair
of particles
is pulled into a
Black Hole
everything becomes real.

Zero point energy
and spontaneous symmetry.

At extremely high energy
everything becomes one.

My wife is turning
sixty.