July 31: Pesce Luna

My husband, a friend, and I chartered a pelagic trip today with John Drury of Greens Island and his boat Fluke. The day was perfect, seas calm, sun bright. Hundreds of Wilson's storm-petrels danced around the boat. We visited great cormorant nesting colonies harangued by bald eagles, watched shining white gannets dive. A parasitic jaeger chased down terns, engaging in relentless but thrilling aerial combats to steal their fish. Puffins buzzed past, carrying fish to young in burrows on Seal Island. We came upon a raft of at least 50 greater shearwaters just hanging out together, completely unfazed by the boat. Porpoises leapt, dorsal fins catching the light above the water's smooth surface.

I think the highlight of this beautiful day exploring the waters and islands of Penobscot Bay, however, was the ocean sunfish. John had slowed the boat down so we could get closer to a jaeger sitting on the water. As I watched the bird through my binoculars, I noticed a floppy fin emerge from the water behind it. The jaeger flew off, momentarily distracting us, but when I pointed out the fin, we moved closer to check it out.

The ocean sunfish or mola mola is one weird-looking fish. It's difficult to tell which way is up--it looks like a giant head with floppy little fins. John told us that in Spanish it's called a pesce luna, a moonfish. Given its round shape and pale form in the water, that makes more sense than "sunfish." The fish lolled in plain sight, submerged briefly, then resurfaced a little farther away. John worried that there might be something wrong with it, as its responses seemed a bit slow. I'm not sure how you could tell if there was really something wrong with a creature that looks so strange. The only other one I've ever seen before behaved in this same way, although that time I wasn't so fortunate as to be so close.

The pesce luna was truly fascinating. It made my day.

Sunfish, pale moon face,
you roll your ocean secrets
through the bay's dark depths.

July 30: Yellow Jackets

My husband unwittingly discovered that yellow jackets are nesting in the upper part of our shed. We go in and out of the shed all the time, so we're finding it difficult to conceive how that many wasps could have moved in so quickly. In a single day, they've made the shed their own, angrily descending upon whomever tries to enter. Unfortunately, there's no way to reclaim our shed without killing the yellow jackets. Neither of us is willing to get stung repeatedly every time we go out there for the rest of the summer. And it's not like you can relocate a wasps' nest.

Sorry, wasps, your end
is near. We know you're only
doing what wasps do.

July 29: Scarlet Tanager

A friend has wanted to see a scarlet tanager for a long time, so this morning we embarked on a tanager quest. I knew there was at least one hanging out on the Ducktrap River Preserve this spring, so I suggested we go back there, though I had no idea if he'd still be hanging around singing. As it turned out, I was surprised by how many birds were still singing. We heard at least half a dozen Blackburnian warblers squeaking way above our heads in the old hemlocks. A family of four white-breasted nuthatches flew to a nearby tree trunk and foraged, the young pausing now and then to beg, the adults still giving in to the impulse to feed them. A hermit thrush's flute song rose from within a stand of pines, and goldfinches twittered overhead.

As we paused among the shade of the hemlocks on a ridge above the river, trying to actually see one of the Blackburnians, my ears picked up on a distant, raspy warble. A tanager! It sounded like he was on the other side of the river, in dense woods, but as we listened, he seemed to come a bit closer. We decided to head down the slope to the river in hopes of catching a glimpse of this brilliant red bird.

The river was beautiful in the morning sun, its mossy banks a bright, verdant green, the water low in this dry season and tea-colored due to tannins from the surrounding hemlocks. Water bugs skipped around on its surface, while tiny fish--were they salmon parr?--darted in shaded shallows. We sat on a big rock and listened. Tantalizingly close, the tanager sang over and over. Another tanager farther up river answered him. They sang back and forth for a while, the sound shifting as they flew to different perches. But we never saw either one.

No matter. My friend and I agreed it was time well spent in the company of each other, the river, and the birds singing around us. And on our hike out, an ovenbird--a notoriously hard-to-see warbler--popped up and gave us a quick glimpse. You don't always find what you go looking for, but sometimes what you do discover is just as meaningful.

She survived cancer.
Tanager's riverside song
seems blessing enough.

July 28: End of Day

As I type this, a cardinal is vigorously whistling, "TEW too TEW too TEW too" outside the kitchen window, coming by for his end of the day feeder visit. Out the other kitchen window, the female hummingbird samples the bee balm blossoms, as we've watched her do for the past several nights as we've sat at the table eating dinner. She'll dip into a red flower or two, withdraw, then turn and hover right in front of the window, looking in at us. I don't know if she sees her reflection, finds us fascinating, wants us to find her fascinating (which we do, of course), or what.

The sinking sun, in a slightly different place than it was this time of night a month ago, or even a week ago, shines through a tapestry of green onto the river. The river itself is a mere thread of murmuring water at this point in summer, but there's enough water there to cast a glare where the sunlight hits it. That patch of light seems like an ephemeral fragment of summer, caught shining for just a few blessed moments, flashing like a signal mirror an urgent message about time and the river flowing...

River catches light
but can't hold it, keeps flowing.
Sun goes on setting.

July 27: Illusions

Back in the 1930s my grandmother had a beau who would take her flying in an open cockpit plane. She said it was the most amazing experience flying through clouds, reaching out expecting something tangible, perhaps silky gossamer threads, but, surprisingly, feeling only moist nothingness instead.

Clouds can have a real solidity. They form shapes and move with a purpose, sentient beings of air. This morning when I arrived at work, two big balls of clouds hung over the trees across the river. They seemed to possess a heft: cloud breasts, perhaps, or giant fluffy footballs. But really, they carried no more weight than their accumulated volume of water vapor. Very large illusions. You can't touch this:

They oppress the trees
with their weight that is no weight--
great balls of water.

July 26: Wherever love is...

While we were driving home tonight from my husband's reading in Castine, me half asleep in the passenger seat, I couldn't help but notice a young couple perched very close to one another on a guardrail along the side of the road. This wasn't a scenic country road with a view of a field glittering with fireflies. It was Route 1A, and we'd just crossed the bridge from Bucksport to Verona Island. But they couldn't see the river from where they were perched, or even the lit-up riverside walls of historic Fort Knox. On this foggy, chilly evening, not even stars were visible. Just cars moving quickly past on their way to someplace else. But who needs someplace else when you have each other? 

A guardrail in fog--

comfortable seat for two

if they are in love.

Interestingly, around the corner about half a mile down the road we came upon the romantic sight of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, its funky array of cables lit up in the night fog, the red lights shining beacons atop the two bridge towers. Imagine this image shrouded in fog:

from Wikimedia Commons

July 25: Carrots

In my favorite book ever, "The Tale of Genji," which was written about 1,000 years ago in Heian-era Japan, the high-born characters celebrate the Iris Festival in the fifth month. A part of this festival involved an iris root contest, to see who could find the most interestingly-shaped root. They would even send love poems to each other attached to unusual iris roots. I thought of this today as I was pulling carrots at our CSA farm in Lincolnville. Our farmer had grown four different types of carrot, and one of them seemed to specialize in twisted, multi-pronged roots. After I got them all home and washed, I thought they made a poetic picture:

The weird ones at the bottom look like legs. One looks like a peace sign or a wishbone. And there's one on the upper right that has a little knob at the top, like the head of an armless doll...

If I were to write a poem on carefully chosen paper such as in "The Tale of Genji" and send it to my husband attached to one of these carrots, it would read:

This carrot's odd roots,

twinned, nourished well in rich soil,

make me think of us.