Phenology for Independence Day

This year's eruption of fireworks may well be sparser than past years, which should reduce outbreaks of wildfires, just as last year's cancelations helped minimize pandemic outbreaks of COVID-19. Isn't life in the early Anthropocene just one treat after another? Thus far we've found no reported linkage between the 'eye of fire' in the Gulf of Mexico and anyone's misguided Independence Day celebration. Nor have we been able to find any definitive association between that fire and Mordor's Red  Eye of Sauron, although the latter feels more consonant with the past four or five years.

common milkweed in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Closer to home, roadsides are enhanced with bunches of black-eyed Susan blossoms and clusters of orange day lilies. Today, for the first time this season, we noticed a milkweed plant in bloom. [This isn't saying milkweed has just started to bloom, although that may be true. It is the first time we've noticed blossoms on the local plants, regardless of when the blooming season began.] The small pond up the road is covered with summer scum, weeds, debris, algae, etc. Neighborhood whitetail bucks are sporting velvet-covered antlers. Much of the local corn is well above knee-high.

whitetail buck in velvet

Photo by J. Harrington

Judging by the activities around what was a bluebird house but, at least for this season, is occupied by swallows, there may well be a second brood in progress. A combination of Baltimore orioles (at least two pair), rose-breasted grosbeaks (several pair), and who knows what else have been going through grape jelly at that feeder at the rate of a dish full daily. This is the first year grape jelly has disappeared at such a rate.

The dog days have arrived, leaving US waiting for what comes next, after independence.

I Am Waiting

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

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