in mid-July, the summer-resident barn swallows who had successfully raised and launched four fledglings by June 23rd, 2025, attempted to raise a second brood;
while i am not absolutely sure if it was the same set of parents or another in the barn swallow community that utilized the nest — as there is a collective of more than a dozen swallows that visits and assists in feeding sometimes too — it is most likely they are the same parent pair;
this is the second summer the barn swallows have nested here in my barn — using last year’s well-constructed nest which they attached to one of the joists like a balcony cantilevered on a Chicago highrise;
i began leaving the overhead barn door open when i first noticed them circling and investigating the barn a few years back; and i was thrilled last year when they began construction of their nest — they were so very welcomed and wanted here — i now know to leave the barn door raised from mid May through July to give them access.
i traveled a river of concrete in a machine,
you traveled an ocean of air in a machine,
babies crying, inconsolably, you said
i said, eustachean tubes aren’t meant for 30,000 feet.
i am not meant for this,
neither are you,
neither are they.
not the opposite of joy
on Christmas eve
but the false pursuit of it
whatever is actually contrary to it
even if we don’t know it when we see it.
even if we refuse to know it when we see it.
if i allow myself to cry, he will see it on my face.
Continue reading “on Christmas eve”
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”
Regular firearm, deer hunting season began yesterday in Michigan, United States of America, and the crack of rifles and the blast of shotguns destroy both peace and life.
There is some version of a legalized, defined kill list or belated, legalized “protection list” for nearly every non-human animal being population on Earth. And, for human animal being populations on Earth too.
What defines murder for human beings, of the human animal body?
INTENT.
All Hunting is INTENT – intent to kill.
All animal “livestock” agriculture is INTENT — intent to kill for profit.
Genocide is INTENT.
Continue reading “contemplating intent, consent, kill lists and ceasefire: deer hunting season, regular firearm, November 15 – 30, 2024 Michigan, U.S.”imagining cocoons of
luna moths
in every furled and fallen
leaf
i use all my breaths
to counter the Wind
who wants to roar them, all,
away
and this Autumn, and last, and every season in between have required so much Auden
one can tell a little
maybe even, a lot
about what “hope” means to someone
as the garden’s fruits and blooms
are winding down,
on verge of frost,
light or hard
in October
will they glean the last remnant of the apples and pears from the trees for sauce, butter or crisp
or will they leave them be
for
the deer,
rabbits
raccoons,
possums
or marmots
will they cut the last of their garden’s
snapdragons, borage,
zinnias, marigolds, amaranth
and bring them indoors to fill vases for their temporary gaze
or will they leave them be
that,
an errant
monarch,
red admiral,
honeybee,
moth
or hummingbird
may find
a hibernation,
migration,
or last supper
meal
a sweet sustenance
an oasis lifeline
a traveling mercy
i offer purple bouquets
rooted in the ground,
not dying, wasted, in vase or pot
this purple
reflected in your eyes, my eyes
monarchs married in our october gaze
we’re not long for this world, we, monarchs, asters, and crone
still, we feast, without any gluttony, waste or fear
one of us, prepares for honeymoon flight to Mexico
where marigolds and death await
later, birds with bellies filled by aster, will seed a known, unknown future
crone’s eyes full and clear, she sees it all, near and far, past, present, future, winter and spring
she is rooted too, laughing and grieving in the threshold
between death and the future, future and the death
between remnant wild and final ravagement
between time and anti-time
thousands of purple petals cascade from her crown chakra like asters //
Continue reading “asters, monarchs & crone”when the Sun reaches the precise height
above horizon,
then arrive the tawny-bodied apple pickers and gleaners/
stilts for legs,
i count twenty limbs in tree camouflage/
bypassing the bushel and the sack
the bounty of fruit down into their bellies //
ears like SETI,
searching for sounds of hoof-less life — canine or primate in the universe
and also, for movement of my unseen, yet intense presence —my breath and pulse slowed, just above, just beyond them —
but i am not in a tree stand/ i brandish no shotgun, no ray gun ///
how rare, these ones are among us,
— among we Earthlings :
silent, gentle and elegant ///
they linger in the morning gold as it stretches West to the lake and evaporates too quick into its blues/
i linger in the dark cool of the open bedroom window, facing North
my senses also honed — and sated//
on this eve of August’s ides,
autumn has not trespassed on the summer,
but was intentionally summoned ///
i recently binged the biography:
“The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Hidden Spiritual Life of the Visionary Poet” by life-long Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer
i feel fortunate this book was my introduction to Plath and her poet husband, Ted Hughes— and other significant influences in her life and poetry /
hat tip to my long-time favorite podcast: Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio — created and hosted by Miguel Conner at The Virtual Alexandria for interviewing Gordon-Bramer, because, for the first time ever, i was actually interested in Plath — and furthermore, i unexpectedly experienced a psychic “something” with Plath while listening to the audiobook; this “something” — i want to digest, explore – and possibly explain, in detail, in a future essay //
while i imbibed this book, i was simultaneously raising an injured and orphaned starling nestling — on an intensive feeding schedule — and during this time, i learned from the book, that Sylvia and Ted also attempted to rescue an injured and sick baby bird — but after a week, and upon determining rehabilitation was futile, they jointly and sadly euthanized the bird in their gas oven (i know. wow.) ///
Continue reading “Sylvia Dickinson Edgar Anne Hughes”an ascetic’s petitionary prayer, answered
for six consecutive summers, i’ve observed barn swallows enter and inspect the barn — diving and swooping in and out, perching and chattering wholly unbothered by my presence — but not until this, my sixth summer, did they finally deem worthy and decide to make their nest on a joist in this old, ramshackle barn
to experience their nesting is such a tender mercy in the time of remote, yet constant virtual witness and heartrage of genocide, of global horrors and famine — and of the daily unnatural disasters and unrelenting evidence of abrupt, irreversible climate breakdown and biodiversity/ecosystems collapse.
O swallows, swallows, poems are not The point. Finding again the world, That is the point, where loveliness Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
Howard Nemerov
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 