August 4: Dusk

Sitting on the back step
while the cat grazes--
unexpected peace.

June 26: Awakened by rain

Torrential rain falls all night.
I lie awake, warm
and strangely at peace.

January 6: Beach

Out birding with a friend along the coast south of Portland. The morning began with snow showers, but most of the day was graced with blue sky and the glare of sun on the water. At Dyer Point in Cape Elizabeth, where long lines of rocks stretch into the sea, we watched colorful Harlequin Ducks bob in the surf and Purple Sandpipers crowd onto rockweed-adorned ledges exposed by the tide. At Two Lights State Park, more ducks, some Razorbills, a kittiwake flying off in the distant shimmer.

At Higgins Beach the ebbing tide revealed a long sandy beach. Some dogs romped after a ball, and a man tried to launch a big yellow box kite into the sea breeze. As my friend scanned the waves for birds, I had the sudden impulse to walk on the sand all the way out to the water's edge. I was reminded how last year about this time I experienced such calm joy walking the warm sands of a beach on Florida's Atlantic coast, past fishermen, surfers, and standing flocks of terns. For a few minutes today, even in Maine's chilly sunlight, I felt that same happy peace.

Expanse of sand and sea--
the mind opens
to let in peace.

December 11: Hope

A friend sent me a link to a video today of a black cat playing with a Barn Owl. Fuma (the cat) and Gebra (the owl) apparently grew up together in Catalonia and often interact in a clearly playful way. The cat will gallop down a path to leap over the owl. The owl will fly low over the cat, inciting the cat to fling itself into the air after the bird. They'll simply stand near each other, like old friends. They even seem to help one another catch mice.

The owl was reared by a falconer but flies free without jesses, so it chooses to interact with the cat (and vice versa--because we all know that no one can make a cat do what it doesn't want to do). As we hear every day about the inability of Israelis and Palestinians to come any closer to peace in the Mideast, in addition to conflicts in Syria, Egypt and our own continuing war in Afghanistan (remember, we're still at war?), I was oddly heartened by this interspecies connection. Perhaps there's some small modicum of hope for Homo sapiens?

(I was also struck by one little detail shared about the cat. He apparently likes to roll in tarragon and thus has a unique scent. An herbal cat!)

On the radio, conflict.
On video, cat plays with owl.
We grasp at any small hope.