-
WATING GAME
We pull in to the parking lot where our mailboxes are arrayed like so many graves at Arlington, or more like the drawers in a low cost mausoleum. This is the new Postal Service, sharing the burden of the need to cut costs even at the expense of services. Standing nearby are two Sandhill Cranes…
-
SEE COWS
The manatees hide just below the surface sticking up their heads every few minutes, for a breath or to thrill the tourists who watch intently, because it is a thing to do in this part of Florida in winter. The restaurants in the harbor don’t mind, it draws a crowd and takes pressure off the…
-
BUDDHA NATURE
A singe egret sits calmly on the lowest branch of a long barren tree, where hours from now a thousand birds will arrive for still another evening and night. He stares at me as I am mindfully vacuuming, watching carefully. I pause and ask if by chance he is a Buddha and he lifts his…
-
ON THE FLIGHTLINE
We sit on our lanai, which the birds will tell you is the backyard of their preserve and watch the sun bid its blazing farewell to this day. The birds begin their scheduled return, ibis in groups, the self-declared top guns flying in hot and flat, only dropping their arrestor hook as the approach the…
-
MORNING SICKNESS
Early this morning the sky was pregnant with the rain that would inundate our afternoon, the sun a struggling visitor then, deciding the battle was lost and sliding away behind the clouds. It is afternoon now and our thoughts of the morning have been washed away, the plants no longer thirsty, risk drowning. We live…
-
CYCLES
The Royal Poinciana is in full bloom, its brilliant flame has led the sun to take jealous refuge in the clouds but we know not to be complacent. Mother nature it is said, and we are loathe to argue, can be at times the most fickle of bitches and we suspect that it will not…
-
MORNING AT THE SHORE
Along the shore, this morning, the clouds piled up, refusing entry to the promised sun, which hung back forlorn. The waves charged onto the sand like so many two year olds in full tantrum, banging against all in sight and retreating, only to charge again, pushing away any and all in their path. The wind…
-
ON THE SEDGE
My wife pauses by the placard in the nature preserve and tells me that what I have been calling grasses are in fact a sedge known as sawgrass. She points out the warning that it’s serrated on the edge and earned its name from those who grasped it without knowing or thinking first. I feign…
-
SEASCAPE
The shadow of the balloon passes slowly along the water’s edge and onto the beach, its gondola touches the dune as the disk of the sun drowns in the sea. First appeared in Beachfire Gathering, 1999
-
FOR THE BIRDS
I’ve always been a bird person, perhaps it is just jealousy their ability to fly unencumbered, encased, to lift up by will alone. Here it is all about water, the Muscovy ducks waddling up to me each morning, pleading for the handout they should now know will not be forthcoming, at least when anyone else…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
an old writer and his words 