Feathers Go Before A Fall

This poem was written on the day before International Earth Day 2005 (35 years after the first Earth Day in 1970!) and dedicated to Gaylord Nelson and all far-sighted persons around the world.

DDT was banned in the U.S. on 6/14/1972. It was not allowed to be used anymore after the last day of that year. It took a while for the food chain of the Bald Eagle to rid itself of toxic levels of the pesticide. Coupled with major tracts of land being set aside for breeding pairs, the numbers of eagles slowly grew. Truly a modern success story!

Just yesterday, I saw two different pairs of eagles soaring over the Mississippi near our home.


Feathers Go Before A Fall

Crossing an isthmus onto an
island in Lake Wappogasset.
Northern Wisconsin is beautiful.
Today was especially so.
The day was early.
The bay was edged with stately pine -
protected and still.

And there it was!

A lone mature Bald Eagle
perched on an exposed limb.
White head and tail glistened in the sun.
Eagles didn't used to be rare in these parts.
Was always a joy to see one!

But not today . . .

High in the tree, a light wind blew.
The eagle seemed unsteady.
Rocking and wobbly.
Tail feathers disheveled -
some missing.
Two tail feathers joined the air as I watched -
landing lightly on the water.

What was wrong?

Someone at camp said that its mate had
died two days before.
Found it floating.

     It won't be long before this one
     dies as well . . . It's the DDT.

That was back in the early 70's.
So different now.
Change happens.
Some, not without effort.

Sometimes, too late.

Sometimes, not at all.

M A Y P E A C E P R E V A I L

Last evening and early  this morning . . . it snowed  no less
than 9 inches here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The snow
made a beautiful background for our outside Peace Pole.

Some years ago, my spouse and I designed and built the
6-foot, cedar-post Peace Pole and set it firmly in concrete
in our  front yard. The words "May Peace Prevail on Earth"
are  carefully painted in black in sixteen different languages
on the Peace Pole's four sides. We had asked each of our
surrounding neighbors to print for us how the words "may
peace prevail on earth" would look in each of their countries
of origin. They were most enthusiastic to do so. One of our
Polish friends even insisted that five words were inadequate
and wrote out a whole paragraph! (When he saw the amount
of space there was . . . he agreed to just the five words.)

We wish you could see it now, out there in the freshly fallen
snow! I also hope and pray that peace will someday cover
the earth . . .

SPRING HAS COME . . . SPRING WILL COME . . .

Meteorlogical Spring was Saturday, March 1st ! It didn't feel or look
like spring. Snow so deep. What do you mean Spring came!?  But . . .
here comes another chance -

My trusty calendar has an entry "Spring Begins Thursday, March 20th.

As they say in central, northwestern Minnesota:  When all else fails . . . write a haiku.
Here's a little (5-7-5 syllable) poem:

                          LATE SPRING

                        A furnace in March
                 almost as good as a campfire
                  dream on, dream on, dream

spring will come when . . .

Yesterday it melted outside big time! Water running in the streets. Elizabeth and I measure each day's height of snow along our driveway. And yes, I chop a little ice in the gutter by the catch basin to hasten the flow of water. (I did that back when I was a kid . . . and convinced myself that it "helped Spring come sooner.")

Here is a poem.


spring will come when . . .

the heavy, sweet scent
   of clove currant wakes
         the neighborhood

fiddlehead ferns slowly rush
    through leaf-covered dirt
         toward light

I touch fuzzy,
    ground-loving, purple,
         wild ginger flower

I hear the
    coo of a dove.

The Sport of Snirt-kicking

Folks who live in the Upper Midwest have a variety of winter sports, to which they turn, in order to survive long winters. There is skiing - both downhill and cross-country. Others snowshoe. Some people roar through the woods and across frozen lakes in snowmobiles. There is curling, hockey, and ice-skating.

Ice-fishing is another popular sport, though it is questionable how sitting in one place for hours staring at a hole in the ice can be called a sport. Drinking beer may be an alternative agenda for some of the guys. (Some  of the fancier fish houses are equipped with TV's). The more hardy might take the polar plunge, jumping into frigid water through a hole cut in a lake's ice. (They don't stay in the water long). All of this after shoveling our walks and driveways.

As winter ages from February into March, snirt-kicking goes into high gear. For the uninitiated, who live in places like Los Angeles, snirt is the accumulation of dirty snow, road salt, and gravel that collects in the wheel-wells behind car tires. If left unattended, snirt is likely to drop off in your garage or even inhibit turning the front wheels of your car.

Thus, snirt-kicking has become a much loved winter sport. When you get out of your car, in a parking lot of course, since snirt belongs to everyone and you wouldn't want to hoard it, you walk around your car. With a deft kick, you take aim at the accumulated snirt. If done correctly, it will fall off beneath your car. Then you have the pleasure of backing over it, increasing the packed snow and ice that covers most parking spaces.

You do what you have to do to survive winter.

OUR MARDI GRAS PARADE . . .

No kidding . . . Elizabeth and I were actually in an official Mardi Gras Parade in Mobile, Alabama! We had gone on a road trip to "find spring" somewhere south. (It sure was not spring here in Minnesota.) We loaded up all our stuff into our blue Honda Odyssey van and took off and headed to southern Texas. We arrived and found a motel. The next morning the weather report alert announced that a tornado was developing near by. So we beat it out of there. By the time the tornado had petered out we were traveling along the Gulf Coast and eventually found ourself in Mobile, Alabama.

Ah . . . it was spring! There was some kind of a parade starting to form along Mobile's main drag. Always curious, we started to drive closer to the action and, somehow got caught within the barriers set up for a parade route. All the side streets had been blocked off and there were people everywhere sitting in lawn chairs and on blankets. And . . .  the plethora of elaborate floats. (I just wanted to use that  "plethora" word.)

There was no way we could leave the parade route! We were in the parade and couldn't leave (even if we wanted to) and so we went with the flow along the whole way in our blue Honda Odyssey with all our stuff. We waved and waved to the crowds who probably wondered what celebrities we were.

We thought Mardi Gras was something celebrated in New Orleans - not across the south, silly northerners we are.

WISTFUL THINKING IN A WORLD OF WHITE

It has been much too long of a winter of white. When will it be over?

For Pete's Sake anyway . . . what does a person expect when they choose
to live in Minnesota, the "land of 10,003 1/2 ice dams?

Sure, I still get out in the deep snow (it snowed another 8 inches again the
other night.) I play in the snow by shoveling off the back deck and the front
walk. I use the long roof rake on the eaves and gutters. And, this morning I
fired up our brand-new, bright red, electric-start, Honda HS520A Snowthrower.
(We call this new machine "Snow Pup the Second" after our over-35-year-old,
red Honda-Snow Pup which breathed its last earlier this week.) We tried to
have it repaired . . . but the shop said too many things were wrong and some
of the needed parts were not even available anymore.

Then I had this brilliant idea to go across the road in front of our house and blow
out the snow drifts from behind our neighbor's cars before they realized it had
snowed so much that they wouldn't be able to get to work. (There was another
reason I plowed our neighbor's driveway . . . Last night, we returned with our
just-purchased snow blower lashed down into our Honda's tiny trunk. Our neighbor
saw us get embarrassingly stuck trying to get into our driveway (with the new
Honda HS520A Snowthrower precariously hanging out of our trunk) -and
promptly came over with his shovel and dug us out.

Even though this new machine is a welcome member in our family . . . we sure
do miss our old Snow Pup.