July 13: Waxing Moon, Swelling Music

On Monday, I'm driving on Route 52 in that rich, late summer afternoon light, clouds billowing on the horizon, music blasting. This is my home territory, these farmhouses and fields familiar and beautiful. I slow along the shore of Megunticook Lake, Bald Mountain rising blue and hazy beyond. Several people are jumping off a dock on one of the lake's islands, and teenagers in skimpy bathing suits are poised on the roadside ledges in the same spot we used to swim from when we were that age. The road rises up the hill, a steep wall of rock to my left surmounted by verdant pines. I crest the hill, spot the faint gibbous moon in the still bright summer sky. Below me, lush farm fields and forest. I love this song. In a few days the moon will be full. I'm almost home.

Fast car, loud music.
Happy to see the pale moon
and all this bright green.

(Song: "Truly (Wise Buddha Mix)" by Delerium)

July 12: Celebration

I walked home from work exultant this afternoon, having landed a big grant for an important land conservation project on Ragged Mountain. Not only did my grant make the cut in a highly competitive funding round, but we got the full amount we asked for, which doesn't often happen these days. My hard work had paid off in a most satisfying way, giving the project a big boost.

So in an uplifted mood I strolled the short, wildflower-lined stretch of road along the river to my house. And in an uplifted mood I heard the piercing cry of an osprey. I looked up and there it was, soaring in lazy circles way above Mount Battie, chirping loudly. I felt attuned to its mood; I think it was calling out into the hazy summer sky simply for the sheer thrill of being a bird in flight. A big bird with strong wings and a beautiful, fish-filled bay stretching out below.

High as the osprey
wheeling above Mount Battie,
I want to shout too.

July 11: Bamboo

A friend in Lincolnville, whom I visited this afternoon, has a rather eclectic gardening sense. He's built his house in a clearing surrounded by spruces, and various plants are flowering seemingly at random amid the indigenous greenery: ornamental grasses pop up amid mossy stumps, delicate little Japanese maples stand here and there amid daisies and ferns, and bamboo plants with variegated leaves lean over the driveway. Out back a small pool hosts a few lily pads, another features a plastic reptile of the Loch Ness monster type. A stone-paved labyrinth spirals behind the deck, a bit overgrown but still magical.

A series of planks forms a sort of bridge toward a lush patch of boreal wetland. Along the way, one thatch of fancy grass with broad, drooping blades looks, as my friend says, like the hair of a Dr. Seuss character. Or a crazy nest waiting for a dinosaur egg. Wild partridgeberry with tiny twinned blossoms creeps close to the ground alongside more bamboo, a different species. These particular bamboo plants sprouted from clippings from another plant elsewhere in the yard. Walking on the bridge with a bamboo plant on either side of us, my friend points out several baby bamboo plants that have sprung up in a rough line between them, as if they two plants are trying to reconnect through these offshoots. I couldn't help but think of the Chinese folk tale about the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, lovers who became two stars separated by the Milky Way, only allowed to meet one night each summer in early July.

Cut from the same plant,
bamboo roots send out new shoots,
try to reconnect.

July 10: Remnants of the Past

One of the reasons why I was hurrying down Old County Road this afternoon was to get to Port Clyde to catch a boat. The other reason was because I was passing the Rockland landfill, a strikingly odiferous zone. That strange stretch of road also features several creepy limestone quarries filled with opaque dark water (that more than one car has ended up in), a few houses whose residents hopefully have no sense of smell, some ATV trail crossings, and all that's left of what must once have been several farmhouses: well-spaced clumps of lilac bushes, honeysuckles, purple phlox, and big patches of day lilies that once graced some long-gone dooryards. One patch of lilies so abounded with big orange blooms that if it hadn't been for the smell, I might have even paused to take a photo.

Near the smelly dump,
explosion of day lilies.
This was once a farm.

Measuring the Miles

As I continue to recover from an injury, when I run these days I need all the motivation I can get. Often it's my iPod shuffle, which drowns out the sound of my labored breathing and shuffling steps and impels me forward with peppy beats. (Favorite running tunes at the moment: Kanye West's "Stronger" and Delerium's "Silence" featuring Sarah MacLachlan.)

But some days I want to be distracted by bird song. In the spring, this is my chance to see what's back singing in the neighborhood. This time of year, it's to see what's still singing. By keeping track of the birds I see or hear during my run, my mind is (mostly) distracted from the toll exacted by the physical activity. To really help myself focus outward, I try to see how many total species I can tally in a run, which requires listening with care. It sometimes even determines which of my usual loops I will take. One loop almost always nets a house wren. The other usually guarantees a vulture or two.

When I get home, I figure out the average number of bird species per mile. Since my distance doesn't vary a whole lot, this can be a decent measure of bird activity. My high count for a run of three miles was 24 species, yielding an average of eight birds per mile.

This morning I was ready to run right after the rain stopped, ideal conditions: the air felt fresh and clear, birds livened up as the sun burned off lingering clouds, and as I began to overheat, trees refreshed me with sprays of loosened rain. I heard mostly the usual neighborhood species: titmouse, blue jay, goldfinch, red-eyed vireo, cardinal, yellowthroat, catbird. A highlight was an unexpected black-throated blue warbler singing in the woods near my office. It was a good run.

I measure my pace:
three-mile run, 24 birds--
good to go slowly.

July 8: Blue Jay Feather

Wandering through my back yard this afternoon, I came upon a blue jay feather in the grass, bright blue with black barring, a pretty thing. A family of blue jays lives nearby--I often see one perched on a particular branch over the back yard, and even more often, hear them. To find one of their feathers, so neat and intact, seems like a gift. Perhaps it was given in exchange for the ripe cherry tomatoes I've been lining up for the jays on a stump under their favorite tree.

The blue of a blue jay's feather is not a result of pigment, as with many colored feathers. Rather, it's caused by the way light refracts through the barbs of the feather. If you flip over a jay feather or hold it up to the light, it looks dark grey. So the blue, which so defines this brash, beautiful bird, is in a sense a mirage.

Blue sky, blue feather--
a gift given or molted?
Flight path souvenir.

July 7: Patch of Sun

I love this hot summer weather, luxuriate in the heat of sunlight on my bare arms, want to roll around like a cat in that patch of sun on my office floor. A set of windows faces west in my office, so the light streams in these afternoons. Heliotrope and purple and yellow vetch blossoms fill the horizon above the sills. Other than boughs waving in a light breeze, the only thing moving out there on this steamy afternoon are goldfinches visiting my feeder, chattering in the distance. A female goldfinch just paused here, her gold breast glowing, the color of sunlight--which of course has no color, but I imagine sunlight made visible to be just that color. She carries with her a patch of sun. She embodies this summer heat.

I watch a goldfinch
from this sultry patch of sun,
both of us glowing.