Like most folks, my husband, kids, and I greet spring’s arrival with relief. The relaxing of winter’s grip, the first crack of color between sepals clutching flower buds, the sun’s liberating warmth all lighten the load my family balances gingerly as we carry it through winter’s dimly-lit cellars. But as daylight’s gold, pink or orange [...]
A robin arrived early spring with
snow on his breast and the
moon in his eyes heavier
than the moon in the sky.
He took his rest on my
gaunt apple tree and
the robin’s winter melody
began to haunt me, he
sang every day for twelve
days and on each day
an apple grew. I watched
him from the window.
The moon in my eyes
escaped with [...]
A lone pelican lands on the slough
beside the barn–
a gawkish bird gliding
onto the murky water,
a flap and beating of wings–
then, a hump of white feathers suspended,
the long orange bill tucked
against his chest.
Pelicans usually stay in large groups
like a carnival of white and orange,
a noisy bunch on parade
content with no less than a feast.
Their feats can [...]
Light’s rise sparks bright blooms:
birdsong, fields of it, vining–
spring’s first green flourish.
These mornings, I step outside my back door to hear the hush of winter thrown off by a clamor of birdsong–the crackle of starlings, jazzy riffs of purple house finches, a lonely two-syllable call from a flycatcher, screeches [...]
October 2, 2009. This morning, as I walk down the road toward Crossfire, I barely avoid stepping on a small, silver-and-grey-winged butterfly sitting on the pavement, trying, I think, to warm itself after our first night of ice-on-the-dog’s-dish cold. The insect’s coloration matches that of surrounding gravel. Only its thin wings and their accompanying shadow [...]
I thought it might be nice to make this Got Flight Week on WIZ’s People Month. Posts this week will play with the question: Can humans fly? If you’ve had a flying dream or other liberating experience related to flying, please, feel free to post it in comments to this post or others published this week [...]
A little over four and a half years ago my family moved from Payson City in Utah County to a new home at the desert’s edge in San Juan County, Utah. Living on the Colorado Plateau has been something of a dream come true. Besides reintroducing me to a more natural (for me) environment, living [...]
(For Leslie Norris)
By Tyler Chadwick
Day’s last reflections
catch on wind-swept ripples
as two geese throw shadows
across watered silence.
Embraced by echoes,
each circles the other.
Tracing this current,
I watch Hudson’s pair
venturing back
across the continent:
Her wings bear no scars
of hapless encounter
with fox or wolf or man;
his body carries
no hunter’s spray,
the lead that felled him
to the dogs. They bask
in this dusking plane,
watching [...]
Our homemade hummingbird feeders attach at approximately waist level to the two-by-four railing that runs around our second story porch. This puts the hummers down with us when they stop by for refreshers between bouts of very small game hunting. Once they arrive mid-April or so, we wind into the lives of these brilliant dynamos [...]
Forgive, please, the late, overhasty and not especially informative nature of this post, but I wished to get something up for Earth Day before the opportunity passed. As usual, consider yourself invited to report on your own Earth Day activities in the comments section.
Here in SE Utah, Earth Day opened gorgeously. Warm and blue. To the south, [...]