November 29: Make a wish

Field of milkweed--

wishing on each drifting seed

for the Monarchs' return.

 

 

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October 4: Mushrooms among us

I've been out sick for a few days--hence the brief absence here--but this morning was up for a mushroom outing at Fernalds Neck Preserve in Lincolnville, led by the very entertaining and knowledgeable Kirk Gentalen of Maine Coast Heritage Trust. I learned a little about mushrooms and other fungi, but what I seem to have retained has more to do with poetry, I think, than biology. Like learning names that are stories in themselves... Witches' Butter, Bear's Bread, Crowded Parchment...

Learning mushrooms--
Velvet Earth Tongue speaks
from the forest floor.

May 31: Trail run

The two startled deer

move through the trees

with so much more grace than I.

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June 22: Pine woods in summer

Went for a trail run this morning at Fernalds Neck Preserve--the "neck" being a point of land jutting into Megunticook Lake. Clouds hung close, making for a steamy solo outing among the pines. As I hit the trail, Hermit Thrushes were singing around me, along with several different warblers, two species of vireo, and at one point, a Winter Wren. When I got close to a water overlook, a loon called from the lake. Near a wetland, as I splashed through a muddy patch, yellowthroat and Blue Jays. And as I stretched red-faced by the car, run complete, a Bobolink's cascading song spilled over from a nearby field, and a waxwing's high-pitched call pierced the thick air.

Trying to outrun flies
I run from bird to bird
along the soft trail.