Red Deer River Valley here was an ocean an ancient shallow sea; great creatures navigated there before you and me. archaic things swam in sandy bottomed shallows sailors in ancient places, where we'll never go again. buried bones have turned to stone millions of years went sliding past it seems so long; it goes so fast. here are bones, when fleshed and live, swam by so long ago. we see them in museums, learning little.
Category: Nature
Arrowleaf
sign of springtime growing wild on a hillside, always impressive, wild things in wild places. snow melt waters cool hillsides, and arrowleaf balsamroot. this year i'll miss the daisies. a time has come to go to distant places, to move along, and find other signs of spring, in other places. adventure seems to beckon; we will go.
Bamboo n Green
it's someplace exotic where i'd like to be again. winds bring us clouds then it starts to rain. green stuff is wonderful, so appealing, i don't know why. it seems a green voice calls seductively and i know that not too many steps, into the green, i'd disappear. smiling.
Then Sunset
look and see before it goes away. the sun is best just moments before the sky goes dark. she tells me when it hurts so very badly. i see so little, but i try to help, but am helpless. my sorrow is her pain must be hers alone. i cannot feel it, though it tortures me, because i know she is in pain, and i care. the sun is best just moments before the sky goes dark.
Green Web
my grandfather's uncle saw the green and said so. since then we too have learned to see the green; it surrounds us and many of us see, but some don't; or they say that they don't see, denying reality. some green things are terrific, and feed the world. but others are very deadly, poisonous, as are some toxic people, denyers of the green.
Rattlesnake Point
from here it looks so different, and it seems like another world, a wonder. someone thought its name might frighten tourists. so they put a different name on the map. local people laugh about it. they know that rattlesnakes are native too. they are not overly sensitive about it. and if tourists are too scarey, a good bite might set things right!
Ring of Fire
mute evidence of long ago eruption, cooling rocks swim in warm pacific waves. a thousand miles away a gentle breeze stirred a sea, and pushed a surface droplet against another and another. the pile rose and now waves wash over these dark rocks, we watch their rhythmical arrival, hear a pattern of splashes. they could be a clock, dividing our days. we might live between wave peaks, resting in valleys. and how the sun burns down on us.
Lava Causeway
when the tide height's right, you may see this sight. a causeway to black rocks in a warm pacific ocean. lava flowed; it flowed again. we wandered, free as wind. beside the sea, a safe and easy place to set our tired feet, walking in our city shoes, smelling wonderful salty breezes.
Tree Heliotrope
i heard it said tree heliotrope is throughout much of oceana. so many places i have not been! toxic, they say, in large amounts. nobody would eat that much. crooked branches. who could build with such tangled wood as that? but trees like this are fine, so fine, for creating shade beneath a south pacific sun.
African Tulip Tree
African Tulip Tree once they borrowed this invasive tree, brought from afar to hawai'i. it was imported from a world away, once transplanted it just got away. spread like disease, among a flock, we heard it so. so many things we do will fail us. time will bring surprises that we cannot understand. our great works impress us so. new evils seem to surprise us; but we may still endure.