The Weekly Avocet – #498
June 19th, 2022
Hello to our Poets and Nature-lovers of The Avocet community:
Turtles on a log
Basks in sun with not a care
Gone with my footsteps
Ray Zimmerman – Chattanooga, TN – znaturalist@yahoo.comznaturalist@yahoo.com
Submitted by Edwina KaderaA group of birds on the beach
Description automatically generated with medium confidence The Beaver Pond
We arrive in late afternoon,
Finding pink blossoms along the pond’s edge.
A Baltimore Oriole perches in a tree,
Then flutters up to a higher branch,
Flashing patterns of orange, black, white.
He must be a male, I think,
Because what female could resist this display?
Perhaps he’s also showing off for the robins,
Who can’t match his brilliant, contrasting colors.
Then a streak of red, perhaps a cardinal,
Darts through the canopy.
Two hours of daylight remain,
But high, thin clouds dim the sun’s rays.
The pond looks a dark green,
Though near the beaver lodge silver undulations
Reflect the pale, filtering sunlight.
We wait and watch hopefully.
A black dot slices the surface:
A beaver’s nose; another follows.
They move higher until the brown, matted fur
Of heads and backs are visible too.
The second beaver charts a course of his own,
And they glide across the pond
In graceful, intersecting arcs.
Then, as if they’ve entertained us enough,
Almost in unison
Heads, backs and tails slip beneath the waves,
Raising hardly a ripple.
We linger, start to leave,
But one surfaces again and begins to swim.
I motion for my wife,
But he sees me
And, with a loud slap of his paddle-like tail,
Dives out of view,
Leaving behind only widening circles
On the pond and in our memories.
Eric Glaberson – Brooklyn, NY – eglaber@verizon.neteglaber@verizon.net
“You choose to be a novelist, but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and it’s a
tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly intimate and
secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have
to say is important enough.” – May Sarton Under surveillance
Three crows on a limb
scold the hell out of me
as I stroll beneath them,
then beyond, their cathedral
of the trees.
Preach, preach, preach at me;
proclaim their territory.
Vigilant black eyes
never blink on their watch
as I silently trespass
on up the hill,
over the stonewall
and disappear from their decree.
Take the daggers
from my back.
Dee Matthews – Brookfield, MA – teach54pe@yahoo.comteach54pe@yahoo.com
“Loving the world means giving it attention, which draws one to devotion, which means
one is concerned with its condition, how it is being treated.” – Mary Oliver (Dee Matthews)
Violet Vigil
On the evergreen rise
a purple-petaled patch
congregated under tall pines.
Light spears softly pierced
the needle-covered ground.
Quiet as white tapers burning
and winking in a subtle breeze,
their secreted color aglow,
yellow pupils of violets
tipped upward–
filled by a gentled sun.
Mary Belardi Erickson – Kerkhoven, MN – marybelardierickson@gmail.com
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” – Dr. SeussLongleaf pine forest
Overgrown with hardwood trees
Fire clears out the brush
Ray Zimmerman, Chattanooga, TN znaturalist@yahoo.comznaturalist@yahoo.com
The Sun
One day as a curious teenager, I dared
to look at the Sun with naked eye
then closed my eyes and stared
again at the Sun in the sky
Red-orange flames
were coming out from its core
strings of lights were wrapped
around it more and more
I saw the yellow beams
coming out from here and there
as if they intended to join and braid
millions of ropes, so bright, so rare
Then I knew not to doubt,
not to ask why
I saw the braided-ropes were
hanging the Sun from the sky!
That day I was sure,
the Sun will offer heat, light,
and will keep the Earth and
the earthlings warm and bright
And I believed the Sun
will keep shining here, there
I knew the Sun will live
for another million years.
Narges Rothermel – Levittown, NY – narira@aol.com
White wings bearing low
Egret glides from stump to log
Breaks forward motion
Ray Zimmerman – Chattanooga, TN – znaturalist@yahoo.com Time to share up to four of your
Summer-themed poems,
If you don’t send them, then we can’t share them
Photos (4), haiku (up to 10), Saving Mother Earth Challenge
poems
Please read the guidelines before submitting
Now you can send up to FOUR (4) Summer poems
Please send your submission to angeldec24@hotmail.com
Please put Summer/your last name in the subject line.
Please be kind and address your submission to me, Charles. Thank you.
(Just so you know: I do not read work from a poet who doesn’t take the time
to address their submission to the editor, who they want to read their work.)
Please do not just send a poem, please write a few lines of hello.
Please do not have all caps in the title of your poem.
There is no line limit per poem.
Please no religious references.
Please use single spaced lines.
Please remember, we welcome previously published poems.
Please put your name, City/State, and email address under your poem. No Zip
codes.
Please send your poem in both the body of an email and an attachment, no pdf
file.
We look forward to reading your Summer submissions…
We feel blessed to publish the best Nature poets in America Days of Sun
There will be a day
when a feather will fall like an arrow
from an unlikely sky
a day when the cicadas hum
and the clouds rise majestic
There will be days, yes there will
when the frost etches forgotten scars
and the snowflakes fall heavy, slow and sad
There will be days of the peony, the poppy and rose
sensuous, insensible and full
the heartbreak hidden in the seed
And a day of sweet grass, cut and drying in the sun
the ditch of chicory and flax
some time to spend on the side of the road
sitting beside a friend, a dog, a lover, a child
yes, some such days Susan Oleferuk
Magic Dog
The day finally came
when cottonwood flew
in downy wings on a June breeze
mirrored by an angelic sky
My Black Lab and I took to the trail
with me catching as many wish-wings as I could
to send wishes to all I knew
those who could use a soft touch in a hard hour or two
My black dog walked sedately past three stunned deer
then swam among the goslings
she pointed a concerned nose at a turtle very slow
and sniffed at all the woods fragrances
I lifted my walking stick and had cottonwood like a wand
meanwhile my black dog was covered with white down
I put a long catkin on her like a crown
and she promptly ate it
I was tempted to eat the will-o-wisp in my hand
for who wouldn’t want dog magic?
Susan Oleferuk – Buchanan, NY – soleferuk@yahoo.comStacey Murphy – staceycmurphy@gmail.comA group of birds in a tree
Description automatically generated with low confidence – sends us this photo of a pair of bald eagles, one
breakfasting on a fish from Cayuga Lake.
From Grassy Key
Pink tissue peeks
from a flowered gift bag as four
eager hands place it in mine.
Inside, two photos—a grandmother’s
gold. Dressed in their own
versions of yellow, the twins
interact with dolphins.
Anna grasps a flipper in each hand.
Amy nuzzles a friendly nose.
Smiles dazzle sunlit water,
remind me why I adore this world,
why I know, that in spite of foes
and doubters, there will always
be love.
Patricia L. Goodman – Wilmington, DE – plgoodman@comcast.net Visitations
Her new puppy pulled out
the long belt from her late husband’s robe,
left the two arms stretched forward.
It was like Jack
was reaching out to hug me, she sobbed.
Eyes rolled. But I know. Shortly
after my husband’s death he came to me
as a wild fox–his soft woofs
followed me through a cornfield.
I knelt. We talked. I feel him now
as I head off to Jack’s memorial service,
in my pocket gentle words to share.
Jack was his close friend. I don’t care
if you believe or not. All you need
is an unfettered mind, so when you look up,
and notice an eagle flying away
across the ridge, you know
you have missed a chance, and next time
you will be waiting.
Patricia L. Goodman – Wilmington, DE – plgoodman@comcast.net
Respite
to walk along the sawdust trails
forest’s sun-filtered walls fallen birch logs,
and the fresh smell of evergreen
where aspen trees seed a needled floor
and downy white tufts become a plush carpet
that soften a shoe’s tread
where listening to wind
blow through cedars and pines is like water
lapping on a far shore
And there to rest on glacier stone to watch trilliums
commingle with oaks lady slippers
display their yellow shoes unaware that time
has disappeared.
Where a hermit thrush threads
songs of praise among the trees its melodic
range weaving a loop of garland over draped branches
to discover that breath is peace and nature
makes sense of our lives when we most need it.
Mary Jo Balistreri – Genesee Depot, WI – joeybfl@gmail.com Praise
the sawgrass ripening and cattail wands
an eagle’s keen over the mangroves
and spoonbills mining mudflats
a lone kite angled and aloft
vultures that drape the sky
and osprey fishing from ribboned nests.
Praise the angler’s wicker creel
white caps that riff the waves
and tide edging up the pylons on the pier
the snarled wall of limbs and trees
bamboo clacking woody drums
egrets springing roosts
in light skimmed like milk.
Praise this day that leans into me
scoops me into its net
this spacious silence
this joy that is morning.
Mary Jo Balistreri – Genesee Depot, WI – joeybfl@gmail.com
A Tree is no more than this
branches build halls of sound – Octavio Paz
Sun-body punctures the sky.
Green dipping into flower
touches her throat. She bends limbs
to reach the underside of leaves
rubs deadwood from her arms.
A cheek brushes white-lipped boughs.
Seasons change. She chews bark
to make this truth. Eyes suggest
the acorn. With only
this mud to give, buds erupt
through her skin and her pubis
is a fresh red-maple leaf.
Language has lost its meaning
Ellen ReichI think about war and then I don’t
On a brindle-shadowed walk
in the woods with my husband,
we notice the stippling on pine bark.
Beige and charcoal with a hint of mauve,
like a surreal oil on canvas.
Nature’s delicacy is healing.
This early morning in the mountain altitude
I forget that the spindle of my life is full,
that I can’t bear to read another word
about smart bombs and rockets,
about soldiers, insurgents, torture.
When I was twenty-one
I trusted, just as I trust now
that we will complete our walk
in harmony with trees and a bit
of last night’s rain
still in the shady places on the path.
Ellen Reich
The New Day
for Emily
I will leap over the gate and find you bending in your garden.
With your hands deep in soil, you will aerate the lilac tree.
I will receive its perfume. In the sunlight, pluck a blossom,
toss it to the sky over the white silk of your hair.
With the earth beneath my bare toes, I will dance
with you because I am your sister and you and I are alive.
It is a new day. Let it linger in the fragrance of your lilacs.
I will embrace you as we spin and dip
until the moon grows thin. You will not vanish,
forever held in lilac-scented memory.
Ellen Reich Spotlight
If the world is a stage
The sun must be a spotlight.
Who is the audience?
Are we players
And audience combined?
Watchers of each other?
Let me entertain you.
Excuse me, but where
Is our great script writer
Who told us about the stage
And about the players,
Who shines a spotlight
On us to wake us up?
Are we the greatest show on earth –
All of us clowns shoving ourselves
Into crowded cars,
On to crowded streets?
Will we crowd each other out?
Push each other off stage?
Or do we get thrown off
When we forget our lines?
Let me entertain you.
But will no one give me the script?
Is there no playwright in the house?
Not even a prompter?
This morning when the sun rose
Across the bay, the moon grinned
As if to say: “Go on, hurry on–
The audience is waiting.”
I must already have been on.
Where else could I have been?
If the world is a stage
I can’t be offstage.
I must be on–right here
Standing on my own two feet
Already in the spotlight:
Let me entertain you.
Joanne Stokkink – Wollaston, MA – thestokkinks@comcast.net If you like a poem/haiku, please let the poet know it…
Elegant in motion
The snake glides over water
Heron quickly eats
Ray Zimmerman – Chattanooga, TN – znaturalist@yahoo.comznaturalist@yahoo.com
High Desert Music
Cowboy sings softly to me each night,
his song a voice-over to the wind
in a plaintive coyote call,
raspy as tumbleweed in an arroyo,
sacred as silence high on Robledo Mountain,
in the staccato splatter of spring rain
annointing each thirsting grain of sand,
or in milky plumes of cirrus
swirling and curling
in the midnight chill of Picacho Peak.
The rough lyrical notes borne aloft
on pungent mesquite smoke
ricochet and reverberate
in the thunder of Pueblo gods
or the quiet drone of insects
bedding down on a canyon floor.
When cowboy sings
his throat is thick with memory,
cords husky with tobacco
and fresh desire for all things
never again to be.
Joan Vullo Obergh – Seaford, NY – Lydia82@verizon.netLydia82@verizon.net
Green frog in the grass
Leaps away with sudden chirp
Floats among the weeds
Ray Zimmerman – Chattanooga, TN – znaturalist@yahoo.comznaturalist@yahoo.com
“What is any poem but a single beat from a heart overflowing with words?” – Joan Vullo
OberghKeepers of the Night
Solitary keeper
of the moon and stars,
daddy went to bed while some of us
ate roast beef and peas,
washed dishes and
memorized vocabulary words
without a single care for what it must be like
to have days and nights flipped upside down,
to rise in pre-dawn bleakness,
and tiptoe through railroad rooms
silent as a silverfish,
while everyone else remained cloaked in dreams.
Feverish, one night I sat alone,
shivering in an unlit kitchen,
staring out the window as distant skyscrapers
pricked pinpoints of light
onto the coal black mirror
of a slumbering East River.
Rising for his shift, dad must have seen
the heating pad pressed
against my wheezing chest.
Asking nothing, he hunched down
beside me,
the edge of his hand
almost touching mine,
and for a few moments
the two of us in darkness,
kept a lonely night
at bay.
Joan Vullo Obergh – Seaford, NY – Lydia82@verizon.netLydia82@verizon.net
“Participation – that’s what’s gonna save the human race.” – Pete Seeger
Gleaming in the sun
Dragonfly metallic blue
On water he is prey
Ray Zimmerman – Chattanooga, TN – znaturalist@yahoo.com
Unexpected Guests
Ed opened the blinds to let
the strong sunshine into his den
for he had a lot of work to do
this morning and wanted
to get an early start.
But to his great surprise
a mama moose
and her twin calves
were lying in his backyard,
basking in the warm sun.
He called his wife in to see
this wondrous gift given to them
to watch these wild creatures
lounging happily together
on their lush, green lawn.
They watched them get up
from time to time
to eat from his prized roses,
but to his wife’s surprise
he couldn’t care less.
As the sun moved overhead
Mama and her twin calves
would get up to better
catch the warmth
of the rising sun’s rays.
A little after 12:00 when
the sun was directly overhead
and at its hottest for the day,
they moved to under the shade
of the big elm tree to rest.
By mid-afternoon, Ed realized
he had done none of the work
he had planned, promised himself,
for his busy day had gotten away
from him and he couldn’t care.They watched them all day
and as twilight was setting in
the moose got up, stretched out
long legs and wandered back into
the dense forest and disappeared.
Charles Portolano – Fountain Hills, AZ – cportolano@hotmail.com
“Together we can. Together we will!” – Jane Goodall
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A Poetry Challenge for all Nature-loving poets in 2022. I love writing Saving Mother Earth
Challenge poems. I am always on the lookout for an article about our wondrous Mother Earth.
Please find a climate change issue about our precious planet and take the Saving Mother Earth
Challenge, and, then send it to us to share with the community…
We all call Earth our home – Have your voice be heard through your words!!!
Please put Saving Mother Earth Challenge/your last name in the subject line of your email
and send to angeldec24@hotmail.com angeldec24@hotmail.com
The Burning Question for our generation is:
What are we going to do to stop or even just slow down Climate Change?
Do you feel like there is nothing you can do about climate change? Well, there is, even if we
all do small things it will make a great difference. Alice C. Hill (the David M. Rubenstein
senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations.) states
the first thing we all need to do is not shy away from the subject. Talk about, write about,
climate change to everyone you know and meet. Write your congressperson and Senators. Let
them know what you think and fear!
I want to do another Saving Mother Earth Weekly Avocet issue, so I am looking for poems
that address the most important issues of today, so please write about what you think and
fear of the coming end of our world as we know it. But if we join together, work together,
we can make a difference to Save Mother Earth, the only home we have.
Show you care. There are so many topics to write about when it comes to Climate Change.
Please find one you are passionate about and write about it!Please let them know we sent you. Thank you.
Text
Description automatically generatedNorma Bradley, an Avocet poet – normabradley1@gmail.comnormabradley1@gmail.com – writes, “When I was ready to
publish my first self-published chapbook, I called Instant Publisher. Chris was very
helpful and answered all of my questions. I am delighted with how the book turned out
and have had many positive comments. I did have help along the way to be able to get it
sent off to finally be published. What I like about self-publishing is that I made all the
choices for the cover design, font, paper etc. The copies arrived within 10 days. Being able
to speak directly with Chris made all the difference. I highly recommend Instant
Publisher.”
Deenaz Coachbuilder writes, “I have treasured each poem in Charles Portolano’s new
collection of poetry, Wild with Life. Love and reverence for nature and those you love
imbues each page. Relationships between animals, between man and animals and birds,
between humankind and the plants we touch, smell, taste, shelter under, respect.
There is a sense of almost holiness, that they were here before us, and will remain long
after, that we are but ephemeral visitors in their world. Our power can be used to preserve
nature or destroy it.
The poems enlighten, entertain, instruct. They help us understand the world around us in
the best of ways, through the stories he tells, for did we not learn of the world through the
stories we heard, and then read, when we were children?
There is a feeling that cannot be described, when we carefully and cautiously rescue a
spider, a lizard, a bird, that has accidentally entered our home, which we release back into
their natural habitat. It is as if something has blessed us.” The American Avocet
I watch unseen this large,
long-legged shorebird,
with its pied plumage
and a dash of red
around its head and neck,
scampering along
the coastline
searching to snatch-up
some aquatic insect
or a small invertebrate
hidden beneath
the brackish waters
of this saltmarsh.
I watch unseen
it swing its odd,
long, up-curved bill
through the shallow,
still waters, catching
a tiny creature,
trapping it in its bill,
racing off to its nest to
feed her four hatchings
with this feast she found.
I watch in awe
as the male
grows protective,
fearlessly fending off
an encroaching
common black raven,
attacking this intruder,
striking at it with its bill.
I watch in wonder
as they swim as a family
just days after
the young ones are born,
then back to the nest to
rest where its kind flocks
together in a community.
Charles Portolano – Fountain Hills, AZ – cportolano@hotmail.com
We hope we provoked you; that you leave having experienced a complete emotional response to
the poetry. I want to thank our Poets for sharing their work with us this week. And “Thank you
for reading, dear reader!” Be well, see you next weekend,
Charles Portolano, Editor/Publisher and Vivian and Valerie Portolano, Co-Editors
of The Avocet, a Journal of Nature Poetry and The Weekly Avocet, every weekend.
Copyright © 2022 by The Avocet (for our poets)
Hold Porn
August 22, 2022Be beautiful enough to feast the eyes
Patty Fletcher
August 23, 2022Hello, thanks for reading and letting us know you enjoyed.