There once was a gnat who hungered for gees.
He nawed and he nashed on narly young trees.
The nome, his old friend
warned the gnu round the bend,
he’s coming, use Deet, as fast as you please!
In limerick style:
3 long and 2 short lines, aabba rhyme.
Sunshine and rainbow rain
banana popsicles and lemon-tart-ade.
Bumble bees with yellow jackets
dandelions and buttercups.
Short sleeved jammies that snap shut
jump on beds and never nap.
Oh how we’ll miss these special times,
the sunlicious days of summer.
We fly in this metal cylinder
to escape the city frenzy
and we still sit in the midst of it.
Hear metal belt click shut
and engines roar
feel the rush of air
from round blow holes overhead.
Nothing natural in this enclosed world.
Binoculars hang about our necks
a noose we choose to use.
Instead of trekking high,
step by step, from tree line to the sky
we ride a four wheeled bus,
now dusty from its assault,
on roads carved deep
into your very core.
We crane our necks
at white dots on mountain tops
adjust a rubber eye piece to our face
seek to magnify without a fuzzy blur.
Specs become horned dall sheep,
heads down to graze upon the rocks
unaware of human spies
with black binoculars eyes.
Last night, we communed with earth
faces up, we stared
into the cold black diamond sky.
One star jarred loose,
arced its way across the sky
as if to tell us in its glitter script,
you are the voyeurs within this space.
Denali National Park bus. The Kantishna Experience goes to the end of the one and only road in the park — to mile 92. I was struck by the magnificence of the land and its inhabitants: grizzlies (see poem Ursa), caribou, moose, dall sheep. And I kept thinking that we were the voyeurs, the interlopers in this incredible place.
The glass is clean today
and we are quiet on either side.
One hand at rest,
age lines etched in black skin
fingers curled.
Mom sits closely by, always watching.
Her babe with impish chatter,
swings away
quickly scampers home
safely tucked inside those long warm arms.
You sit, eyes not meeting mine,
lips pursed, a sadness to your face.
Which of us, in this family,
is behind the glass,
and which of us in front?
Where does this zoo begin,
and where does it really end?
Photos from our visit last year to San Diego Zoo. Post in response to Daily Post Photo Challenge: Connected.
I was alone, but for a moment
amidst pealing bells.
Suddenly you were there
tear streaked face buried in my chest.
Memory flash of newborn nestled into me.
And then you were gone
dancing joyfully,
her white veil trailing on your arm.
If you look with the mind of mother earth, in this place called Alaska, you become the earth.
Great calving sheets of ice seen from the haven of a cruise ship. We roar in excitement as you roar in pain. Losing part of yourself to the sea.
My boots trek through forest, stumble on tree roots, your uprooted veins. In the midst of rocky debris, at the toe of Laughton Glacier, a new sound. The relentless trickle of water into a glacial stream. Tears unabated, you weep cold rivulets, slowly, through hundreds of generations.
And I see. And I hear. Like a jagged shard of ice thrust through my heart. I understand this insidious thing we blithely call global warming. And I am chilled to the bone.
A prose poem, in the style of Joy Harjo.
Photos: Top: great slabs of ice shed from Mendenhall Glacier. Above left: standing on the “toe” of Laughton Glacier, after hiking 6.5 miles through Tsongas Forest and climbing through rocks on her debris field. This picture shows a gap — the “black cave” created by the ice melting…continuously dripping. The “rock” above the cave is the ice itself, narrowed from melting. It will eventually collapse into itself. All that you see above the “cave” is ice with debris its carried in its forward path. Right: the “ice field” our ship had to go through to get to Hubbard Glacier….which can be seen in the distance. Result of glacier calving.
See views of the glaciers themselves with my poem, In the Midst of Glaciers.
A different take on the Daily Post Photo Challenge: from every angle.
Tree top abandoned
you glide overhead
power and beauty combined
a national treasure.
Outstretched black wings
white head and tail
blend in sleek aeronautic form
sole presence in vast sky.
Suddenly
legs drop in mid-flight
fearsome talons glint in sun
stark contrast to sea serenity.
No hesitation,
double-back or fly around
fast dive, splash
water and body collide.
Plummet turns to majestic rise,
return to nest, the conqueror.
The moment, so fast in time
waters flow unbroken
unaware they’ve lost
a swift inhabitant
to the ruler of the sky.
Photos: from recent Alaska trip. Apologies they are not better….taken on cell phone. Eagle was magnificent!
Our footprints disappeared
in cool damp sand ridges
as we walked, farther and farther
into the wetness of low tide.
Heads bowed,
eyes shaded from glare,
the water glistened
in glorious serenity.
We shared our solitude,
hand in hand
grateful we chose the off-season
to rediscover togetherness.
This is rewritten, using Glisten as a base, the first poem posted here, on March 20th.
Round haunches, vestigial tail
grizzly when disturbed,
you meander, content and calm
on Denali’s hallowed ground.
Forager by nature
low bush cranberries and blue ones too
two thousand garnered every day
sustenance for a long winter’s sleep.
From sight to paw to mouth,
our approach ignored
until windows fling open
and camera eyes gawk.
Suddenly, like Ursa Major
on guard from on high
you look at us
wee squatters on protected land.
And in that moment,
the lesson is realized.
You are the superior being
of this great mother called earth.
Amazing and magnificent creatures seen in Denali National Park.
Dare I watch? Dare I breathe in this place,
where Nature’s breath and hand
hath created frozen beauty
over hundreds, nay thousands, of years?
Glaciers appear as still rivers
imperceptible flows of time
dip down from mountains of rock,
those dark monoliths of eternity.
Snow compressed, solidified
centuries of generation after generation
braids of blue crystal rivulets
between boundaries of sky and sea.
We float, this ship of humans,
bodies in the midst of your debris
slabs of flesh among slabs of ice
decades of life dwarfed in age and size.
Bits of time shed from the mother lode,
we, the detritus of humanity
make our way through the field of ice
looking backward as our ship retreats.
We are changed forever by this timeless place
one small ship in a glacier glory land
a fracture
in the eons of time.
Top two photos from aboard our ship, very very close to Hubbard Glacier. We had to move through an ice field from its “calving” — to get close this close — and we were privileged to see it calve — drop a huge mantle of ice with a thunderous sound!!!
Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau.Notes below.
Almost to the toe of Laughton near Skagway.
Laughton’s ice shelf. Melting into glacial stream.
Us on hike back down. Notes below.
Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau. We hiked to a beach where we could look across a lake and see this magnificent site. Next are photos of our hike all the way up to the “toe” of the Laughton Glacier near Skagway. We are standing by a glacier runoff stream — the sound alone was wondrous. Others are of us standing on the toe — incredible that we made it this high — right next to the glacier….you’ll see the ice shelf, crack in the ice. Truly an amazing hike — exhausting but exhilarating! We climbed through woods, then over fields of rocks and boulders to get here. 11 miles round trip to Laughton. Alaska: trip of a lifetime!
lillian the home poet 