Thirty years after the sudden death of someone I didn’t know terribly well, what remains? Not his name. Not quite his face, but something of his posture and physique. A strong impression of good-natured and thoughtful conviviality, based on possibly no more than half a dozen conversations, always on the periphery of punk shows. The shock and sadness of his death from a brain tumor. Someone who, on rare occasions when he pops into my head, still makes me smile, and shapes my memory of that whole period in my life. Good times. A good dude.
Wish I remembered his name.
***
fledgling cuckoo
flopping across the road
adoptive parents
nowhere to be found
poor little rain-crow
didn’t mean to be a parasite
*
opening my umbrella
I spook a bear
in the depths of the hollow
widely spaced raindrops
water still gurgling
under the rocks
and the crashing of something big
in black velvet
upslope through woodferns
and storm-downed timber
*
a distant cuckoo singing
who are you you you
I know a lullaby
when I hear one
***
pine (k)not
***
One interesting residue of my long-ago year in the Kansai region is that humid rainy days in the summer still remind me a bit of Japan, not necessarily in a fully conscious way (which is why I call it a residue). Similarly, a snowy, cold winter day might have an extra charge of excitement and possibility to it from my early childhood years in Maine.
***
A fast-moving longhorn beetle. I’m beginning to understand why professional insect photographers like to pop their subjects in the freezer for a few minutes to slow them down. This beetle seemed very keen on getting back under cover as quickly as possible.
*
Just as I’m thinking of turning back to the house, a medium-sized animal clambers down out of an oak tree and stands for a few seconds looking back at me. It’s been years since I’ve seen a gray fox. First time I’ve ever seen one in a tree, which seems odd, considering their reputation as the most cat-like of canines—and how much damn time I spend looking up at trees.
The clouds redden with sunset. Can’t resist a shot, clichés be damned.
Picking red raspberries up on the Allegheny Front. Quite a switch from the more common black raspberries that Mom and I have been concentrating our berry-picking efforts on for the past week and a half, which signal ripeness by color change. With red raspberries, you have to kind of gently pinch them and see if they’re ready to let go. The dead ripe ones drop at the lightest touch. And they’re even sneakier than the black raspberries, bending canes down as they ripen so the best berries are often well hidden from above. They seem to be expressing an evolutionary preference for dispersal by small, ground-dwelling critters such as toads and turtles. Which makes sense, given their preference for wetter sites.
