an old writer and his words

  • IBIS SEEING YOU

    They pausein their foraging in the lawnto peer up at us,strange looking interlopers,but they are used to us by nowand return to the task at hand. We no longer find them strangethough we never quiteget used to the curvedsalmon colored beaks,and we do wonderwhy the ancient Egyptians held them sacred. It seems that theyhave never forgiventheir Egyptian ancestorsfrom affixingtheir head to…

    Lou Faber

  • ETA

    So many of the late arrivals tonightare egrets, the Cattles long inamong the reeds and brush sharingspace, only reluctantly, with the ibis. It is their snowy cousins who arriveas the horizon is a fading bandof orange gold dissipating under thefaint, unyielding eye of Venus,and seem shocked when theyare turned away with flap of wingand cry,…

    Lou Faber

  • AMONG THE MISSING

    We can sit for a time, and speak of our pains, how they cause us to stop and look inward while the world proceeds on it’s axis, in a slow march through time and space, and we share the anger and anguish of our too fallible bodies which time reclaims in slow progression. We do…

    Lou Faber

  • 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…

    Lou Faber

  • VESPERS

    The sun slowly starts it’s daily retreat, setting the thinning clouds ablaze. The birds return, ibis, egrets, anhinga and kite and even the limpkin march slowly across the lawn to the preserve that abuts our yard. They take up their perches on the trees and bushes and on the limpkin’s call begin quietly to recite…

    Lou Faber

  • ASKED AND ANSWERED

    Only the ducks remain, and they aren’t saying. Ask a Muscovy where all the ibis have gone and he will say, “good riddance, they’re ugly and get in the way.” Ask of the pelicans  and they will remind you that now there are more fish, and they’ll be back eventually, but things are much calmer…

    Lou Faber

  • LINJI WAS(N’T) HERE

    I very strongly doubt that Linji ever walked along this path, given that it wasn’t even here fifty years ago. He never saw the egret staring back across the pond, or the flock of ibis doing what seem like prostrations. He did not see any of this, which saddens me a great deal, but taking careful steps,…

    Lou Faber