|
- Poems
- by Sandy Beck
|
 photo by Sharon
Broderidge
- Night is Black Saucer Eyes
-
- in a turning head
- seeing where you cannot.
- Night is a community of
scurriers
- scratching at spilled seed
and left-over suet.
-
- Night is large ears that
hear
- a mouse's heartbeat thirty
feet away.
- Night is soft, silent wings
- maneuvering through dogwood
and magnolia,
- gliding across a moon-bright
lawn.
-
- Night is sharp talons,
- a beak that tears,
- a feathery silhouette
- devouring his prey.
-
- Full-bellied and confident,
- night calls lustily from
a longleaf snag-
- hooohooo-hoohoo, hoohoo-hoohooaw!
- Courtship fills the icy
woods.
-
- Night drops beside her,
swaying
- from side to side, up and
down.
- He sidles along a branch,
then
- towards her again, raising
each wing
- feathers fluffed.
-
- She bows her head for a
gentle scratch,
- then returns the favor
herself.
- Night pauses:
- soft eyelids close;
- striped bodies nuzzle.
-
- This night is a barred
owl.
-
|
- Paddling the Wakulla River
-
- I will build my nest
- half under water,
- the rest in woods
- so you can breathe
- the night winds
- and be shaded
- from the first hot rays--
- the ones that strike
- even before the river
- begins to steam.
-
- Half under water,
- so we can lie
- secretly and cool,
- as the tall white heron
struts
- above us,
- cottonmouth slinks
- the length of cypress limb
- and bright green lizard
- melts into as bright
- green leaf, drifting.
-
- I will build my nest
- half under water,
- the rest in woods
- so you can have
- the biggest slice of moon,
- any piece you choose--
- you, wrapped beneath
- in air and water,
- always like a present
- waiting.
-
-
Second Nature
- An ectotone is a transitional
community, an edge, where two ecosystems overlap. A rich, diverse
place where trees, bugs, birds visit and share. Edge-dwellers
are space travelers, explorers, ambassadors.
-
- The edge is an educational
place where
- one gets a second chance,
trading
- a broken wing, a blinded
eye
- for ripe fruit or mice,
already killed and laid out
- side by side.
-
- A tail-less 'possum yawns,
sniffs
- the air, and waddles
- toward the peeled banana
which she grabs
- with both hands -- chewing,
smiling,
|
- and smacking
- her lips all at once, as
only a 'possum can -- then climbs
- onto a tree stump, turns
twice
-
- and stretches on her side
in the sunny spot, like
- the black and white cat
in the window
- who has never run through
the woods,
- who has never chased squirrels
or caught
- lizard tails, but he watches
them all
-
- with one eye and dreams.
- Barred owls click their
beaks and swell
- to twice their size as
I pour
- cool bath water and shovel
- rat parts from the sand.
-
- A tiny kestrel rips
- at easy flesh, while lawn
eyes study
- her hooked beak, sharp
talons, bobbing
- head, and flicking tail
-- a balancing act
- with just one good wing.
-
- The hawks stand tall, their
long, red tails shimmering
- in the morning sun. I turn
- the hose in their direction,
the largest
- female drops her head back
and opens her mouth.
- Above their cage, two hummingbirds
suckle
-
- on a purple morning glory
vine, then zoom --
- back to the woods, hawk
eyes still focused
- on their shiny red throats.
-
- I live at the edge -- where
- woods and lawn meet, where
wild things sometimes
- forget their names.
-
- Photo by Sandy Beck
|
|
Unnatural History
- Red Watt raised his
pet crow, Judas from a fledgling to become a live decoy
who lured thousands of unsuspecting crows within shotgun range.
-
- Millions of crows flock
to Fort Cobb, Oklahoma each year
to feast on peanuts that lay scattered after harvest time.
Hundreds of crow hunters also flock to Fort Cobb.
They bring decoys, blinds, shotguns,
-
- and a well-rehearsed repertoire
of crow language.
The distress call: seventy-five percent fall with it.
The come-back call: Look what I've found!
And the mourning call: for crippled or stone-dead comrades.
It's a battle of wits.
-
- Red Watt, who comes all
the way from Omaha, scores
between eighty and ninety thousand each year.
After forty-five years, his technique is smooth:
a good blind, lusty distress call, number nine shells,
-
- and the Judas crow.
Mated pairs will always insure two-fers,
but multiple kills, Red says,
are his chief delight.
-
- From his front porch, John
James Audubon once watched
a single flock pass overhead -- three million each hour
for three days. They darkened the skies. Passenger pigeons,
he wrote, are the most abundant bird on our planet.
-
- In the fall of 1808, E.V.
Wilson led his annual
pigeon party to a hilltop near Frankfort, Kentucky.
The birds sprang upward from the tall grasses --
bright explosions of millions and millions of wings.
-
- The sportsmen pointed their
weapons skyward, ripping
small holes in mile-long fluttering ribbons
of slate blue and wine red.
-
- Jimbo, a permanently disabled
crow, who lives at St. Francis Wildlife.
- Photo by Sandy Beck
-
Toward a Rebirth of Wonder
in Fourth Generation Two Egg, Florida
As dawn exposes the bare bones
of winter pasture beside Lake Jackson,
a red-tailed hawk scans the fields
from the top of a cypress snag.
-
- Travis C. Mills wakes with
the sun
in his eyes - a barn door to fix,
firewood to split, possum to skin.
He reaches for his bag of Red Man.
-
- The red tail spots a meadow
mouse
at five hundred yards
and falls, a feathered projectile
slicing through air, then deep
into skin and muscle.
-
- Travis C. Mills finds his
cleanest
t-shirt, pulls up his overalls,
unchains the door, steps out
on the front porch and spits.
-
- The hawk fans her tail
and rounds
her wings. She is busy
concealing her breakfast
from a tree of noisy crows.
-
- He reaches for his shotgun,
raises it to his shoulder
and blows her body
through the tall grasses.
-
- One wing hangs
by a single bloody tendon-
the mouse,
still clenched in her talons.
-
- "Lousy chicken hawks.
What good are they?"
Travis C. Mills believes
chicken hawks get his chickens,
eagles kill his lambs,
osprey steal his trout,
-
- turkey vultures spread
disease,
and owls-well, they are the devil's
dark sisters. Vermin. All of them.
Vermin.
-
- If only Mr. Mills
would go eyeball to eyeball
with a crippled hawk. Just once
look into her lightning eyes,
-
- connect-being to being-
just once, feel her strange beauty
then ask
"What good is wonder?"
-
- Red-tailed Hawk, "Jamaica,"
a permanently disabled
- member of our Wild Classroom,
is the victim of an illegal gunshot.
- Photo by Lincoln Karim
|
|