September 25: Sunset celebration

cannon fired at sunset

scares up all the harbor gulls

their wings glowing

 

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March 14: Lo, on high, yon Bald Eagle!

The crows are pissed
but my spirits soar in blue skies
with that eagle.

Do you see the eagle waaaay up in the sky?

February 26: Boston

If I were a pigeon

I too would swoop

between these tall buildings.

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January 11: Flight to Florida

After Bangor was enshrouded by ice yesterday morning and our flight was delayed five hours, we felt very fortunate to be on the only plane leaving the airport that afternoon. Our gratitude was bolstered by the fact that on the drive to the airport we passed many cars off the road--even after conditions had improved--and when we got there, we were surrounded by hundreds of troops--men and women who had been deployed for months overseas and who were now going to have to wait one more long day to continue their flights home to family.

 

I felt relief tinged with a little guilt when we finally arrived in the warm embrace of Florida late last night for our vacation.

 

Outside the airport

Killdeer cries in the rainy dark

beyond the palms.

 

And then this unexpected stopover on the drive to my mother's house:

 

Part of this happy crowd--

cheering on the Patriots

in a smoky Hooters bar.

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October 22: Deeper into fall

Waiting for a phone call.

A single crow flies straight

and high overhead.

January 15: Perspective

I love to pore over topo maps, trying to visualize the three-dimensional reality on the ground of the two-dimensional symbols on a piece of paper. I thought of the experience of map-reading this morning as we flew into Atlanta. With clear sunny skies, I could see every building and topographical feature below, with the skyscrapers of the city center looming on the horizon. I entertained myself in trying to decipher what I was looking down on. A gravel pit was an easy one, but what was that bare hill, almost a butte, that looked like it had been scraped off for some reason? For that matter, what was the black mound sided with what looked like solar panels? It being Sunday and the South, the large building surrounded by cars and what might be construed as a steeple had to be a church. The big flat institutional building with fields and an oval track out back was clearly a school. Sewage treatment plants are fairly easy to pick out. The intricate streets of all the housing developments, lined with big look-a-like houses, fascinated me. Some had pools and tennis courts, some didn't. If I had to live in that one there, I decided, I'd be in that house at the end of that cul de sac surrounded by woods. Not near the pool, but quieter, less crammed in. Some developments were separated from obvious construction sites/gravel pits by just a fringe of trees. I wondered if you noticed the proximity if you lived there. Just before the airport, we flew low over several industrial buildings with rows of semi trailers backed up to loading docks, then a post office with a lot full of identical mail trucks. Then a patch of raw red earth--future runway space?--and then we touched down.

From air, perspective:
all those lives below, people
filling the landscape.

December 19: Flying Geese

Driving through town with the car stereo playing loudly, I looked up to see a flying flock of geese in silhouette against the cloudy sky overhead. I was reminded of the weaving pattern my grandmother liked so much called Flying Geese. The repeated Vs of the pattern was a common theme in the borders of her wall hangings, as a reference to her pet goose Max. A barnyard goose of the domestic variety, Max was probably too fat to ever fly. But the pattern was there, a touchstone for the potential for wild beauty. Like what I saw from my car this afternoon--the very shapes of wild geese flying enough to stir my heart and memory.

Silhouettes of geese
black against winter white sky.
Yet still I drive north.

June 22: I Can See My House from Here

Today I flew a plane! A friend of my husband flew into Owls Head from Portland this morning and took us each up in his rented Cessna. Hugh served three tours in Iraq with the Marines, flying "anything that flies," as he put it, and is also a flying instructor, so I felt like I was in good hands. I wasn't nervous, but when you grip the steering handles to turn, and the plane responds, it's quite a feeling.

I love to fly, love to see a landscape that is so familiar on the ground from that new, lofty perspective, trying to guess what's what from the new angle. A hawk's eye view. We flew over Beech Hill so I could take some photos, turned inland to fly over Ragged and Bald Mountains, followed the Megunticook River to Camden Harbor, then followed the coast over Rockport and Rockland Harbors so we could check out the giant drill ship moored and awaiting repairs out beyond the Breakwater. I felt a surge of love toward the beautiful patchwork of green forests and fields bordered by the blues of the bay spreading out below us: this is my home. And I literally picked out my home (and my office) as we flew along the river. Funny how we always need to find ourselves in that way. It was like playing with Google Earth only in real life.

Hugh let me take the "wheel" for a few more minutes as he lowered the flaps and flipped switches to prepare for landing. It was kind of like driving a car, only different. An uplifting experience (pun intended), and even more so, I think, for my husband. I was trying to photograph everything I could see, but he was intent on really experiencing what it was like to fly a plane. Judging from his ecstatic expression as he stepped back to the ground, I think I'm thankful that there's no way he has the time for flying lessons.

Is this what hawks feel
as they soar over forests,
spying that one tree?