Yesterday we had an afternoon visit for at least half a hour from a male American kestrel. He spent much of that time perched on the post that had held a bluebird house until a bear smashed it last year or the one before. We brought the bird feeders in early and will leave them down for a couple of days. So far today no kestrels have been in evidence but there are a number of hungry and disgruntled songbirds and woodpeckers on the deck railing.
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| male American kestrel in our back yard
Photo by J. Harrington
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This morning we were greeted by bright yellow hoary puccoon and blue spiderwort blossoms on the hillside fields behind the house. An orange butterfly, monarch I think, was nectaring on the puccoon blooms.The flowers, and the butterfly, were observed as I transported garden carts full of leaves accumulated along the foundation on the north side of the house. The leaves were too many and too thick to try just mulching them with a mower. While hauling the leaves off to the wood’s edge, I noticed a distressing number of poison ivy sprouts that will get a dose of Roundup after tomorrow’s rain, or after Sunday’s. Sometimes the joys of country living are enough for me to almost consider moving to a highrise condo. [Not really]
I don’t think we’ve any serious plans for the holiday weekend. We’ll try to get some yard work done between rain showers / thunderstorms, drink coffee and read while it’s raining, and maybe squeeze in some practice with a fly rod when and if the sun shines, meanwhile, watching to be sure a kestrel hasn’t snuck back in for a free lunch at our feeders.
Dispatches from Devereux Slough
Black Phoebe Highwayman of the air, coal-headed, darting Plunderer of gnat hordes, lasso with beak – "Surely, that fellow creature on the wing," The phoebe thinks, "should fly like this." And loops His flight path in a wiry noose, takes wing Like a cast line and hits the living fly, Ripping it from the fluid of its life. Devereux Lagoon Shiners leap ahead of diving cormorants And killdeer cry, alarming one another. In an egret's beak, the catch flashes like shook foil. How well these field glasses scope out the place— A kestrel sky, serrations of the Madres, And sand flats darkened by a rare rain shower. Such an odd peace, as creatures stalk each other Dispatch from Devereux Slough Fall, 2008 The gulls have no idea. The distant bark of sea lions gives nothing away. The white-tailed kite flutters and hunts. The pelicans perform their sloppy angling. The ironbark eucalyptus dwells in ignorance and beauty. And the night herons brood in their heronry like yoga masters, each balanced on a twig. The world has changed. The news will take some time to get here. From the Garden Toad A cri de coeur of mud, a heartfelt groan Of deep damp, mother rainfall and her sire; A plea from underground, from drooping shade, From memories of sunlight and clear water; Reproach of an old grandparent half-forgotten – All in that voice, announcing a desire To have sex under the giant philodendron. Marine Layer No one is out tonight, but just in case, A tubaphone's deep echo, like a seine net, Sweeps under darkness and pulls darkness in The way a trellis shadow cages light. To hear the foghorn is to hear your childhood, If you were lucky to have lived near ocean, Moving again into your neighborhood. Overcast on Ellwood Mesa Hawks like it. Wings cast no shadow, hovering, And white crowned sparrows are easier to pick out Among the foxtails, scurrying like mice. Under the gray cloud cover, blue birds course Like running water through the fennel stalks, And the shrike, color of the sky, keeps watch From the barbed wire of the startling green golf course. September Song Those phosphorescent shoulders of the night surf Passing beneath the pier, as we looked down, Were an agitation in the falling water Of creatures set to glowing, all together, By sudden apprehension, which we perceived As incandescent wonder, our eyes feasting, Our hearts filled by the light of crashing down. Shorebreak, 3 a.m. At night the swell and crash, the swell and crash, As waves rush forward, peak, and then collapse Gasping and giving up a ghost of spray, Sounds from a distance like a low-voiced hush. Awake, alone, at the right hour to hear it, That hush, for all the sleeplessness behind it, Can lead one, walking wounded, back to sleep. Sundowner Waking at nightfall like the other monsters, The vampire and the moonstruck wolfman, arson Is hardly required to set your body burning, Thirsting for dryness, dry brush, stucco houses. Flame wind, ember wind, wind of moonlit smoke, Rolling a fog of ash downhill to sea, The sun's down is the harsh fur of your burning. Surgeons The egret is more patient than any watcher And lances its incision when its stillness Has made one look away. Its anesthetic Is stillness, and it numbs the water's skin. The pelican takes a hatchet to the water, The egret plies a scalpel. They extract fish, But one by smash and gulp, and one by stillness. The Crystal Ship Sands Beach, Goleta The famous rock star thought up his famous rock song While gazing out at the oil derrick offshore. Lit up at night it might look, to stoned eyes, Like a faceted galleon perfect for a song. Tonight, as sunset gives off its green flash, The derrick has that look. And so does the oil barge Docked to it, dead black, filling up with cargo. To a Dead Sea Lion at Sands Beach You had returned from dry land back to water, Preferring it, and welcomed the new limbs, Webbed to conceal your toe and finger bones. You rolled along the surf, all memory Of other motion swept back in your wake, And ended here, among fly-buzzing kelp. Sleek swimmer drowned, and with your unwebbed bones. Heaven When we are reunited after death, The owls will call among the eucalyptus, The white tailed kite will arc across the mesa, And sunset cast orange light from the Pacific Against the golden bush and eucalyptus Where flowers and fruit and seeds appear all seasons And our paired silhouettes are waiting for us.
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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