Approaching mid-Summer (meteorologically speaking)

We've had small (2 - 4 birds) flocks of turkeys wandering through the fields behind the  house almost every day for the past week or so. I still haven't seen any poults. The Better Half [BH] claims she  saw a hen with about six or so poults about a week or ten days ago. Often by this time of Summer, we've seen several hens leading groups of poults through the property, but some years we've not seen such flocks until early August. Perhaps I'm just getting overly anxious and we'll soon see family flocks.

turkey hens and poults, family flocks

Photo by J. Harrington

In a similar vein, we've not yet seen any whitetail fawns this Summer. Often, by mid-July, at least one or two does have shown the young'uns the paths through the fields to the road crossing. Nothing  so far this Summer. The lack of sightings is beginning  to make me nervous. Then again, there's a current story about the prospects for a significant drop in the human population forecast for 2100. Maybe the stresses of pandemics, climate breakdowns, species extinctions and whatever else may come into play is affecting all the different kinds of persons of the earth.

whitetail doe and  fawn, mid-June

Photo by J. Harrington

On a sunnier note, it's now the time of year locally when black (Rudbeckia hirta) and brown (Rudbeckia triloba)-eyed Susans are brightening roadsides. Wild bergemot has started to bloom, pleasing numerous pollinators and drivers traversing the countryside. Looking at the local wildflowers, one could almost think all's well. I don't think wildflowers are susceptible to the current pandemic but their habitat can be and is disrupted all too often by political decisions. I'm hoping that the forecast population drop will occur and give all the inhabitants of this "pale blue dot" a better chance of perpetuating the species.

A Brave And Startling Truth

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.