April 20: Driving / Rain

Driving rain, midnight,

the highway a black river

we struggle upstream.

Posted with Blogsy

October 23: Reflex

Dark and stormy night--
I keep swerving
to avoid skittering leaves.

March 26: Big wind

Just a dusting of snow here in Penobscot Bay. East and inland from here they're getting serious snow today, which I'm happy to miss. But bone-chilling, gale-force gusts have certainly livened the day, transforming the air into a dynamic, roaring creature intent on eating us whole.

We freeze in our tracks--
March's untamed lion roars,
flings itself at us.

December 20: Friday evening

By week's end
my mind as blank
as the sky.

December 15: Moment of clarity

After all the shoveling,
the night sky's
brilliantly clear.

December 13: Winter Storm Watch

One day before the storm
night sky clear enough
to see falling stars.

February 9: Blizzard aftermath

This was one of the biggest snow storms I've ever experienced in Maine. My car was so completely buried under a snow drift, I couldn't even shovel it out myself--the snow was piled too high! The wind still roars, blowing loose snow around, undoing all our work to clear out the house and cars. Fallen branches peak from beneath finely sculpted drifts. Peaks and valleys of snow have transformed the landscape. At the feeders, goldfinches, chickadees, and house finches pecked through snow to get at the seed, then sat there eating, out of the wind, as long as they could.

Ice coats a finch's face--
she seems unbothered by it
while she feeds.

February 8: Creaking trees

Walking home from work in a moment of relative calm during today's snowstorm, I heard what I thought was a woodpecker tapping at a tree. I paused to listen more carefully and realized it was a tree creaking in the wind. 

Trees sway in storm winds,

tap out their messages.

Wonder what they're saying. 

Just thinking in broader terms of human conversation, on a more philosophical level, it made me realize that we can never really know if we're understanding what someone else is saying. And the farther we're removed from them by medium of communication--email, letter, text message, writing them a poem, passing along a verbal message through a third party--the more room there is for misinterpretation. Those are my deep thoughts from amid what's supposed to be a serious blizzard. 

January 31: Roar

This morning I awoke to a roar outside that made me think for a brief instant that I was back in my usual bedroom on Monhegan hearing the sound of the surf pounding the island's rocky shore. Instead, gale force winds and driving rain engulfed the house with a loud, malevolent energy, flinging branches. Lights flickered. The river, wild with storm water, added its own white noise to the scene.

A co-worker's child told him the trees blowing outside their house this morning looked like "angry hair."

A few hours later, however, all is calm. Big patches of blue sky shine behind breaking clouds. The trees barely stir, and the temperature is almost the same outside as it is in. Ah, the vagaries of the weather in New England.

Roar of the sea familiar
outside my bedroom window.
I wish I were back there.

December 29: Misty mountaintop fadeaway

The title of this post sounds a bit like a cross between something from The Hobbit and a Dead song, but the moment was real enough. My husband and I decided we needed to get lunch and treats at Morse's Sauerkraut before the snow storm hits tonight. Driving there, we passed austere snow-covered fields and trees laden with snow under a bleak, blank sky. As we headed home, the first flakes began to fall. As we drove into Camden, cresting a hill that offers a view toward the Mount Megunticook ridge line, we noticed how snowfall along the top of the mountain made it seem to simply fade away into the white sky.

Mountaintop fades into white
snowfall. In dreams
it's like that when I die.

December 28: Clearing

After yesterday's snow storm, shoveling the office walkways this morning with my co-workers...

Scrape of shovel,
faint crackle of ice
sprinkled with salt.

December 27: Riders on the storm

A nor'easter sent snow and freezing rain gusting around my office today. I live too close to work for the weather to be an excuse not to show up, and we didn't lose power, so I put in a full day there. I was, however, pleasantly distracted for much of that time by the birds flocking my tiny window feeders. The regulars--chickadees and titmice--showed up, of course, and what I think is a solitary White-breasted Nuthatch. And then some finches I hadn't seen in a while made an unexpected appearance: goldfinches, their yellow throats looking positively sunny against the snow, Pine Siskins, and at least three redpolls--a boreal visitor I've only had at my feeders a couple times before. The finches chattered away as they chowed down; I could hear them through the window despite the roar of the wind.

Redpolls peck seed from snow.
I catch myself thinking
of raspberries.

Redpoll visitor from last year (window too splattered with snow to get a photograph today!)

November 8: Wind and sorrow

For the third time in a year I attended a memorial service for a someone I knew and admired--all three vital men taken in their prime, each a role model for the way one should live a life--energetic, joyful, generous forces within this community. At today's service, folk musician Gordon Bok and his wife, harpist Carol Rohl, performed Gordon's song, "Isle au Haut Lullaby," some particular phrases of which really resonated for me:

Give sadness to the stars
And sorrow to the seas...

Sleep now, the moon is high,
And the wind blows cold;
For you are sad and young
And the sea is old.

Bleak but oddly comforting images as the wind roars outside, whipping branches in the near-dark, and not far away, the cold waters of Penobscot Bay stretch to the horizon with their burden of islands, an ocean deep enough to swallow any grief.

The widow said she felt like
last night's storm was carrying
her husband away from her.

November 7: Brisk

A cold wind has been gathering momentum this afternoon as the first wintry storm moves in. Tonight we're expecting snow, rain, and sleet, possibly coastal flooding, with a stiff gale to stir things up and knock it all around some. It's just after 5:00 p.m. and, dusk long past, the darkness sits heavy outside the window. I sit here alone, bracing myself to open the door and step out into the chilling energy of a stormy night.

Cold snap
a slap in the face.
Restless in the dark.

October 30: Flood

Since childhood I've had recurring nightmares about water--rogue waves about to carry me under, storms creating waves so high they creep up over the bank and across the lawn to carry away my grandparents' house, roads or paths flooded and impassable so I'm stranded with water all around me... You'd think that since I'm a water sign, a Pisces, I'd have a better subconscious relationship with water. But no.

So when I was looking at photos this morning of the flooding and destruction caused by Sandy in New Jersey and New York--cars completely submerged on city streets, houses surrounded by waves, impossibly high waves crashing over sea walls onto shorefront houses, commuter tunnels filled to the top with water--it was like seeing my worst dreams come to life. The images produced such a visceral reaction in me, I had to stop looking. My heart goes out to those people for whom such images are not just bad dreams but reality. And as I listen to the rain fall--nothing torrential, no high winds--I am tremendously grateful to have had it so easy here on the Maine coast, and that all those I love are safe.

It all washes away
so easily.

 

October 29: Entrainment

Hurricane Sandy, Extra-tropical Storm Sandy, Big Huge Storm Sandy, or whatever you want to call it,  is headed our way after already wreaking havoc on the mid-Atlantic states on up. When a big storm system moves through during a migration season, some birders get excited, anticipating unusual southern--even tropical--species blown off course. Pelicans and boobies end up off the coast of Maine; seabirds end up far inland. If you and yours are safe and sound post-storm, that can be one of the most interesting times to be out birding. If this kind of storm watching appeals to you, eBird offers more specific information.

In reading on eBird about how this storm may affect various types of birds, I've learned a few things. Strong storm winds may displace birds--blowing around or concentrating large flocks, knocking pelagic birds inland, for example. Or birds may get caught up in the calm eye of the storm, especially one as large as Sandy, and get carried thousands of miles north along with the weather. That's how we end up with tropicbirds in Massachusetts. That's entrainment.

This song describes Van Morrison's definition of "entrainment." It seems to differ slightly from the ornithological definition. But the concept, however one thinks of it, has tremendous poetic potential.

Calm amid passion's swirl
yet still carried away,
dropped on a strange shore.

August 29: Hurricane

No, there's no hurricane here. Barely a breeze to rustle the shining green birch leaves out my window. It's a perfectly still, calm, beautifully sunny late summer afternoon. Crickets are humming, a stalk of goldenrod sways under the weight of a bee. A kettle of vultures soars gracefully above the river, tilting in the updraft, spiraling ever higher into the bright blue sky.

That's why it seems surreal to think of Hurricane Isaac, thousands of miles to the south, battering Louisiana with torrential rains, high winds, flooding, and power outages. Unless you've got loved ones in the storm's path or have Southern roots, it's so easy in this quiet little pocket of the world to forget that elsewhere things aren't going so well. Not that we shouldn't enjoy these halcyon days. But we should also be grateful, really savor them. And keep in our thoughts those whose homes and lives are in danger right now.

It's been such a wonderful summer here in Maine--so unusually sunny and warm. Conversations about the weather all repeat the same belief that we're going to pay for this perfect season somewhere down the line--with a big storm, a long winter, something bad. We can't help thinking that way. Such old-style Puritanism is bred into us as New Englanders. And at some point, we will get horrible weather, some disaster like Hurricane Irene a year ago in Vermont, so we're always right in the end. But really, we all know that Nature brings what she brings, regardless of what we deserve. And we weather it the best we can.

So calm this morning
vultures had to flap, awkward
in early thermals.

August 17: Rider on the storm

Late night, caffeinated drive to Portland through, first, torrential hail, then a straight downpour, all mixed with ground fog, thunder and lightning the whole way, and one deer crossing the road.

Turn up the music
to drown out the sound of hail
drumming on the car.

Posted with Blogsy

August 28: Tropical Storm Warning

The wind's picking up, although the rain has diminished. We've just gotten an actual Tropical Storm Warning alert for Camden, so presumably the trees will be swaying with even more energy before the night is over. Actually, it's still only Sunday afternoon. Full daylight. But I figured I should post before things get worse in case we lose power later. While it's slowed and been downgraded from a hurricane, Irene is still one monster storm, the spiral of clouds on the radar map covering hundreds of miles. Amazing what Mother Nature can churn up, with a little added boost from global warming.

The storm really does feel tropical, too. The air is heavy, moisture-laden, warm, swept up from the Caribbean and carried here by the swirling forces of nature. Birders I know have been hitting the coast, hoping to find that Irene's brought along some tropical birds, as well. One birder friend hopes for magnificent frigatebird and brown pelican, perhaps some unusual southern terns (scroll to the very bottom of this blog post to see all his predictions). So far reports of black and Forster's terns are coming in from southern Maine, and oystercatchers further up the coast, but nothing exotic yet. Here at our house, there's a house finch in the window feeder.

I've seen photos from Vermont today that show a huge washout on Route 4 that carried utility poles down with it. Friends up and down the East Coast are posting stories of floods, washouts, wet basements, power outages, and general mayhem. Here in Camden, my triathlete neighbor just returned from his bike ride. Another neighbor just walked by, on her way to the store and back, in an outfit that didn't look at all storm-proof: heels, short skirt, thin blouse. But somewhere out there I know boats are rocking on their moorings, branches are cracking, and birds are getting blown off-course. And right here, right now, I'm feeling all that energy in the air and pacing the house like a cat.

Moon's pull and storm surge,
tugging on my very cells--
crazy energy.

October 15: Birds in the Storm

The winds and rain hit last night and continue through today, dumping at least a couple of inches of rain on the Midcoast. I've seen a few trees blown down, though nothing damaging (unless you're the tree), and my peony bed was flattened as if stepped on by an elephant. Muddy streams of water are running down the roads--apparently Barnestown Road over by the Snow Bowl is actually underwater thanks to a nearby flooded wetland. When you're driving, the water on the road swirls and fans on the paved surface under the tires of the car in front of you. It's kind of mesmerizing. And the edges of all the streets are carpeted with leaves of all colors, including a lot of green leaves that didn't even get a chance to change color before being ripped off the branches. At the office we heard several claps of thunder, which made the deluge even more dramatic.

When I arrived at the office this morning, three goldfinches, barely visible through the rain, were huddled in my bird feeders. When they left, I decided to move the feeders from an exposed window to one under the porch roof. So I emptied them of sodden seed, dried, and then refilled and reattached them in the new location. Not two minutes later, a chickadee hovered in front of the window where the feeders had been. Then another chickadee came by, fluttering in place, as if to say, "Where's our feeder?!" So I quickly moved them back to the original location. And they were quickly revisited.

This afternoon I returned after a lunch meeting to find the feeders blown onto the ground. It's been a tough day to be a hungry bird. I refilled and reattached them yet again, and chickadees and goldfinches have been braving the elements all afternoon to feed, even in the half-dark of late afternoon. As branches and boats are being tossed around by the gale, a pert little chickadee is making that dash to the feeder to grab one more seed. And of course, many wild birds out there are getting by in stormy weather without the benefit of a feeder. It makes you realize how tough these little guys really are.

Leaves scattered, sodden,
branches flung, roadways flooded.
Yet, chickadee's here.