fieldnotes 4.4-6.17

4.4.17
(55/45)

robins. redwings. chorus frogs. swallows starting to get a little aggressive. tree and barn. turkey vulture circling. little flock of gregarious golden-crowned kinglets. ruby-crowned too! 4 piedbilled grebes. tons of swallows over the water. merganser. wood duck. coots. big flock. fox sparrow. pair of flickers. crow. song sparrow. bluebird battling a swallow. cardinals. 3 grackles. redbellied woodpecker. another fox sparrow. chipping sparrow. kestrel showing off. chorus frogs. more kinglets. little flock of song sparrows. flicker. cormorant on the pond. mallards. blue heron – the big guy. close. 2 vultures, low. Eastern wood peewee. wood duck. blue-winged teal.

Unknown

…’they told us our gods would outlive us’…

Deep in the core that minds the machinery,
am I myth or monster?
I sing the wind to bend the branch
that holds your scrap of sail —
an old, old story:
the siren’s tyrannical sympathy,
and how it bears the will and whim of dreamers.
How you mastered the tides but not the storm.
How they are greater gods than we.
How they brought you here to sit,
and breathe —
just where Ocean crashes into Other,
back to the waves,
settling in,
I sing the wind and know:
Anything could wait within the distant treeline.

4.6.17
(50/38)

sandhill cranes. redwings. song sparrow. chorus frogs. peeper. cardinals. canada geese on a nest. windy! tree swallows. nice to see the sun. chilly though. song sparrow. redbellied. meadowlark? some kind of woodpecker. bluebird. angry swallows. meadowlark! TOO-too-hee-Tee-too. chickadees. song sparrow. river high and fast. white throated sparrow. kestrel low in the old man’s branches. flicker. nuthatch. vernal pool. so many frogs! bluebird. carp in the creek.

Notes:
Quote 1: (gods): Nick Cave + Bad Seeds / ‘Distant Sky’ from Skeleton Tree (2016)

about fieldnotes

fieldnotes was written at the Marsh beginning Sept. 26, 2016 and ending near the same time in the following year, collected in memo books over the course of many rambling walks.
Beginning on Sept. 26, 2019, three years after the writing, fieldnotes will be published in its entirety, with posts appearing as the corresponding write-dates occur.
(at least to the best of my ability)