Poetry Sunday: In Summer Time by Paul Dunbar

Paul Dunbar's poem describes the kind of summer that I remember from my time of growing up on the farm. It was indeed a time which lulled the senses and made for drowsy indolence when all one really wanted to do was take a nap in the shade of an oak tree. But since it was a farm, there were animals and fields to be cared for, so no time for napping. Still one could enjoy the "birds' songs," the "bees' low monotone," and the "waters' drone" while one took care of those necessary chores. The music of summer.

In Summer Time

by Paul Dunbar

When summer time has come, and all

The world is in the magic thrall

Of perfumed airs that lull each sense
To fits of drowsy indolence;
When skies are deepest blue above,
And flow'rs aflush,—then most I love
To start, while early dews are damp,
And wend my way in woodland tramp
Where forests rustle, tree on tree,
And sing their silent songs to me;
Where pathways meet and pathways part,—
To walk with Nature heart by heart,
Till wearied out at last I lie
Where some sweet stream steals singing by
A mossy bank; where violets vie
In color with the summer sky,—
Or take my rod and line and hook,
And wander to some darkling brook,
Where all day long the willows dream,
And idly droop to kiss the stream,
And there to loll from morn till night—
Unheeding nibble, run, or bite—
Just for the joy of being there
And drinking in the summer air,
The summer sounds, and summer sights,
That set a restless mind to rights
When grief and pain and raging doubt
Of men and creeds have worn it out;
The birds' song and the water's drone,
The humming bee's low monotone,
The murmur of the passing breeze,
And all the sounds akin to these,
That make a man in summer time
Feel only fit for rest and rhyme.
Joy springs all radiant in my breast;
Though pauper poor, than king more blest,
The tide beats in my soul so strong
That happiness breaks forth in song,
And rings aloud the welkin blue
With all the songs I ever knew.
O time of rapture! time of song!
How swiftly glide thy days along
Adown the current of the years,
Above the rocks of grief and tears!
'Tis wealth enough of joy for me
In summer time to simply be.

Another trip around the sun

My family is celebrating my birthday today, so no "This week in birds." If I survive the celebration, TWIB will return next week. Happy Saturday! 

Poetry Sunday: Earthrise by Amanda Gorman

I've found myself thinking this week about how our planet is viewed from outer space and it turns out that former U.S. poet laureate Amanda Gorman has given some thought to that also. She published this poem on just that subject a few years ago. In it, she urges us "to keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for." Those are words we should take to heart and on which we must act for the future of life on Earth.

Earthrise

(Dedicated to Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project)

by Amanda Gorman

On Christmas Eve, 1968, astronaut Bill Anders
Snapped a photo of the earth

As Apollo 8 orbited the moon.

Those three guys
Were surprised
To see from their eyes
Our planet looked like an earthrise
A blue orb hovering over the moon’s gray horizon,
with deep oceans and silver skies.

It was our world’s first glance at itself
Our first chance to see a shared reality,
A declared stance and a commonality;

A glimpse into our planet’s mirror,
And as threats drew nearer,
Our own urgency became clearer,
As we realize that we hold nothing dearer
than this floating body we all call home.

We’ve known
That we’re caught in the throes
Of climactic changes some say
Will just go away,
While some simply pray
To survive another day;
For it is the obscure, the oppressed, the poor,
Who when the disaster
Is declared done,
Still suffer more than anyone.

Climate change is the single greatest challenge of our time,

Of this, you’re certainly aware.
It’s saddening, but I cannot spare you
From knowing an inconvenient fact, because
It’s getting the facts straight that gets us to act and not to wait.

So I tell you this not to scare you,
But to prepare you, to dare you
To dream a different reality,

Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.

We are demonstrating, creating, advocating

We heed this inconvenient truth, because we need to be anything but lenient
With the future of our youth.

And while this is a training,
in sustaining the future of our planet,
There is no rehearsal. The time is
Now
Now
Now,
Because the reversal of harm,
And protection of a future so universal
Should be anything but controversial.

So, earth, pale blue dot
We will fail you not.

Just as we chose to go to the moon
We know it’s never too soon
To choose hope.
We choose to do more than cope
With climate change
We choose to end it—
We refuse to lose.
Together we do this and more
Not because it’s very easy or nice
But because it is necessary,
Because with every dawn we carry
the weight of the fate of this celestial body orbiting a star.
And as heavy as that weight sounded, it doesn’t hold us down,
But it keeps us grounded, steady, ready,
Because an environmental movement of this size
Is simply another form of an earthrise.

To see it, close your eyes.
Visualize that all of us leaders in this room
and outside of these walls or in the halls, all
of us changemakers are in a spacecraft,
Floating like a silver raft
in space, and we see the face of our planet anew.
We relish the view;
We witness its round green and brilliant blue,
Which inspires us to ask deeply, wholly:
What can we do?
Open your eyes.
Know that the future of
this wise planet
Lies right in sight:
Right in all of us. Trust
this earth uprising.
All of us bring light to exciting solutions never tried before
For it is our hope that implores us, at our uncompromising core,
To keep rising up for an earth more than worth fighting for.

This week in birds - #687

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

This is the the Peruvian Thick-knee, a bird of the hot, dry coastal plain of northwestern South America. It is an unusual desert-dwelling "shorebird" that is mostly nocturnal. It has not been studied extensively and so is not as well-known as many birds. Much is unknown about its basic biology and about the overall health of the species, although the known evidence suggests that it is declining. As with so many species, the main threat to its continued existence is habitat loss. The Peruvian Thick-knee is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. 

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Scientists studying the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs sixty-six million years ago suggest that it turned the planet into an inferno where any creature who couldn't find cover would have been charbroiled.

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Ancient fossil footsteps that have been uncovered in Kenya suggest that one of our early ancestors may have been larger than previously believed.

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A new study suggests that linguistic diversity may have reached its peak three millennia ago and that humans of that era may have spoken thousands more languages that we have today.

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The dunes sagebrush lizard of the Permian Basin of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas was declared endangered by the Biden administration in 2024. The current administration has now stripped it of that protection.

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Wildfires in France have been so intense that they created a monster cloud which unleashed lightning that created more wildfires.

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Although the current administration canceled a project called the National Nature Assessment, the scientists who worked on it found a way to continue.

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Five rescued Kemp's ridley sea turtles were returned to the sea around Cape Cod this week.

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How did some reptiles lose their limbs and become snakes? An 80-million-year-old fossil is providing some answers to that question.

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The Okefenokee Swamp that spans parts of Georgia and Florida has been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

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Here's a list of the best national parks in the United States where you can witness wildlife migrations. 

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If you are interested in attracting hummingbirds to your garden, here are some tips that could help you do it. One way is to put up feeders but ants can be a pest in those; here's how to keep them off. Hummers are tiny birds, of course, and they build tiny nests.

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The adult content site OnlyFans now has a G-rated account called "Only Marms." It features marmots and is an effort by scientists to get funds for their research on the squirrel-like rodents.

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Chimps and bonobos use hugs, kisses, and friendly pats to show affection and diffuse tension in much the same way as humans.

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If you visit a national park where there are elk, watch out; they are more likely than a bear to attack you.

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Researchers are tagging and tracking spinner sharks along the East Coast to try to get a clearer idea of their migration routes.

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Remember acid rain? Well, it's back.

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There is an effort to reintroduce storks to Derbyshire in England.

Poetry Sunday: Family Reunion by Dorianne Laux

Summer was the time for family reunions in the place where I grew up. My own family's (which coincided with that of our church) was the third Sunday in June. It was always hot - it was mid-June in the South after all. 

People came from far and near to spend a day with family and friends that they might not see for another year - if ever again. There was all-day singing at the church with "dinner on the ground," except it wasn't really on the ground. It was on a long series of wooden tables built behind the church. People brought their food from home and spread it on the tables and everybody shared. Potato salad and fried chicken always featured prominently in the food that was brought.

When I was growing up, my mother always got me a new dress and shoes for the day and I generally ended the day with blisters on my heels from the new shoes. But that was a minor inconvenience.

When I came across this poem in my search for one to feature this week, it reminded me of those days and of so many people that I loved who are no longer there. No more family reunions when so many of the family members are gone. But anyway who needs a picture of it all when the camera of the mind remembers...

Family Reunion

by Dorianne Laux

Camera in hand, I call out to them,
one by one, in twos and threes,

working up to the group shots,

the family portrait.

My nephews, scrubbed clean, dressed

in red, hug each other's mirror image

and smile the same smile.

Head to head, their dark hair mingles

as the shutter clicks.

Now I sit the baby between them,

my niece who has my eyes, my nose,

a stranger's wide mouth.

The flash going off in her face

makes her love the small black box

I hold, so much, she is willing to pose

forever, as if I held the force

of the sun, a gorgeous toy, and all

her days balanced in my hands.

Grandmother squeezes in, holds

her baby's babies in her diminishing lap,

circles the shoulders of her son,

her daughters, my own shy daughter,

and pulls them into the frame,

the fine lines of noses and chins

a painter's signature stroke.

I take picture after picture,

the windows going darker

with each bright flash, each face

held up to the repetition of light.

But when I look to see how many frames

are left, I find the tiny window

in the camera is empty, remember

the film left on my dresser

500 miles away. I smile at my family,

ask them to stay where they are

just a few minutes longer as I press

the blank shutter again

and again, burning their images into my own

incorruptible lens, picture

after perfect picture, saving them all

with my naked eye, my bare hands,

the purest light of my love.

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This week in birds - #686

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

                      Ruby-throated Hummingbird                                       Rufous Hummingbird

How well do you know hummingbirds? Well, here are seventeen facts about them that will help you know them just a little better. 

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The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is the Peruvian Thick-knee, a "shore bird" that lives far from any shore. It is, in fact, a desert-dwelling bird found in the dry coastal plains of northwestern South America. Its population is decreasing.

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The Environmental Protection Agency no longer seems intent on protecting the environment. One of its latest actions is to kill proposed rules for Pfas-contaminated sewage fertilizer.

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Beehives may operate as democracies but first the rival queens fight to the death.

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Poop from southern right whales is revealing that they have a more varied diet than previously thought and that just might make them more resilient to the effects of climate change. 

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Video of orcas off the California coast shows them ramming a sunfish so hard that it explodes.  

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Finally some good news about the endangered red wolves: There have been four litters born this year to the critically endangered species in North Carolina.

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Avocado seeds have been spread from South to Central America over a period of thousands of years. (And in fact I now have one growing in a pot in my backyard.)

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Hunter-gatherers introduced trout to a Norwegian mountain lake 7,000 years ago.

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Naked Mole-Rats are one of the more interesting (and surely one of the ugliest) species on Earth and it seems that the queens are able to emit a special scent that prevents their rivals from reproducing. 

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We don't usually think of deserts and penguins together but there is one species of penguin that thrives in deserts. It is the Humboldt Penguin of Peru but its population is in trouble.

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In still more bad news for the environment, the Trump administration plans to auction off sections of water around American Samoa for deep-sea mining. 

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Twin echidnas (called puggles) have been born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

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Do our tiny acts meant to help the environment actually matter? They do indeed add up.

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A raccoon with a (possibly) rare congenital spine condition has become a celebrity in a Seattle neighborhood. He's even been given a name: Jimothy.

Nick Anderson is optimistic

Those branches that were cut off are significant, I think. It may be necessary to cut off a few more, but let's hope that the tree itself will remain sound and continue to grow.