Poetry Sunday: Insect Life of Florida by Lynda Hull

I must say the insect life of Florida sounds very like the insect life of Southeast Texas. Our days are filled with "their endless thrum." Especially the cicadas. And our nights are now "metallic with cicadas, musical and dangerous as the human heart."

Insect Life of Florida

by Lynda Hull

In those days I thought their endless thrum

   was the great wheel that turned the days, the nights.

      In the throats of hibiscus and oleander

I’d see them clustered yellow, blue, their shells

   enameled hard as the sky before the rain.

      All that summer, my second, from city

to city my young father drove the black coupe

   through humid mornings I’d wake to like fever

      parceled between luggage and sample goods.

Afternoons, showers drummed the roof,

   my parents silent for hours. Even then I knew

      something of love was cruel, was distant.

Mother leaned over the seat to me, the orchid

   Father’d pinned in her hair shriveled

      to a purple fist. A necklace of shells

coiled her throat, moving a little as she

   murmured of alligators that float the rivers

      able to swallow a child whole, of mosquitoes

whose bite would make you sleep a thousand years.

   And always the trance of blacktop shimmering

      through swamps with names like incantations—

Okeefenokee, where Father held my hand

   and pointed to an egret’s flight unfolding

      white above swamp reeds that sang with insects

until I was lost, until I was part

   of the singing, their thousand wings gauze

      on my body, tattooing my skin.

Father rocked me later by the water,

   the motel balcony, singing calypso

      with the Jamaican radio. The lyrics

a net over the sea, its lesson

   of desire and repetition. Lizards flashed

      over his shoes, over the rail

where the citronella burned merging our

   shadows—Father’s face floating over mine

      in the black changing sound

of night, the enormous Florida night,

   metallic with cicadas, musical

      and dangerous as the human heart.

This week in birds - #558

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

This may be my favorite picture of the week - the President of the United States being upstaged by a Mourning Dove!

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June was Earth's hottest month on record. July and August say, "Hold my beer!"

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U.N. Chief Antonio Guterres says that Earth is now in an era of "global boiling."

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Architectural styles can be an important component of keeping cool.

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One place you won't keep cool is Death Valley and yet tourists flock there.

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Tourists visiting national parks should be aware to stay well clear of any wild animals to avoid a tragedy like this.

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The Gulf Stream is nearing collapse and that could mean catastrophe for Earth's climate. According to an analysis of 150 years of temperature data, the Atlantic Ocean's circulation system has slowed and become less resilient. 

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House Wrens can be instruments of chaos and havoc for other species of birds.

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A pod of pilot whales off the coast of Western Australia was displaying unusual behavior and then the animals beached themselves.

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This is the dunes sagebrush lizard, a resident of the Permian Basin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed that it be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Since it lives in an oil-rich environment, the usual suspects line up to oppose its protection.

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Do you have any dead butterflies, moths, or skippers lying around? The U.S. government may want them.

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There are explorers abroad in the land who are searching for the last cultivars of old and important plants.

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Some Sandhill Cranes are moving uptown and adopting an urban lifestyle.

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The Appalachian Trail is getting longer and harder. (To think - I once harbored dreams of walking it!) 

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This is the sweet little Grasshopper Sparrow, a bird more often heard than seen. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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Why does it seem that we are not frightened by the prospect of catastrophes as a result of the climate crisis?

                                               Stolen from Daily Kos.

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Do you recognize the calls of the birds around you? Test yourself. Of course, there are those who are deprived of the pleasure of hearing birdsong.

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Otter 841 in the waters around Santa Cruz, California has become something of an internet sensation by stealing surfboards and upending kayaks.

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Right-wing groups are making plans for the next elected Republican president to dismantle the country's climate policy and environmental protections.

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The Guam Kingfisher was almost wiped out when brown tree snakes were introduced into its environment, but scientists who are battling to save it hope that eventually it can be returned to its island home.

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The best way to control the plague of invasive wild boars in the country may be to hunt them.

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In Phoenix's record heat, some work to rescue and save baby birds that tumble from their nests.

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And on the small island of Wilton Manors, Florida, the residents are dealing with an unusual problem: cute little bunnies. They are the result of an irresponsible former resident who abandoned a pair of pet rabbits on the island. 

Reviews

I've been quite negligent about posting reviews of the books that I've read recently, so here's my effort to begin to catch up.

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I find that Elin Hilderbrand's books are generally good for a light summer read and this one certainly falls into that category.

The setting is Nantucket (of course!) and the main character is Hollis Shaw. Hollis has recently lost her husband and as a grieving widow, she is lonely and searching for a focus and purpose for her life. 

Hollis has a summer home on Nantucket and she comes up with the idea of inviting a friend from each decade of her life to spend a weekend with her at that home. Accordingly, she invites Tatum, who was her childhood best friend; Dru-Ann, her best friend from college; Brooke, a friend from when their children were growing up together; and Gigi, who is her favorite internet friend. (Hollis is a blogger and Gigi follows her blog.) Little does Hollis know that she and Gigi share another connection and grief at a loss.

Hollis asks her daughter, Caroline, to interview and film each of the women as they discuss how they know Hollis. Of course, they each have their own problems and concerns and these are revealed through the interviews. The weekend becomes something of a therapy session for each of them.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable, non-taxing read. I've read Hilderbrand books before so I knew what to expect and I was not disappointed. If you are looking for a good beach read, here it is!

My rating: 3 of 5 stars  

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Long, long ago in another hot summer not unlike this one, I read the Agatha Christie classic And Then There Were None.  If I wasn't hooked on reading murder mysteries before, that book sealed my fate. I searched out more books like that and especially more Christie books. I think, over time, I finally read all of her books, and some of them, like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I read more than once. Apparently, Alice Feeney is a Christie fan as well.

In Daisy Darker, Feeney has written a kind of homage to Christie's And Then There Were None. Feeney's story takes place on a tidal island that is cut off from the rest of the world once the tide rolls in.  At that point, it will be eight long hours until the island reconnects with the mainland.

The title character, Daisy Darker, is the granddaughter of the woman who lives on that tidal island. Nana is turning eighty years old and the family is gathering on the island to help her celebrate. Naturally, all of those family members have their own secrets and concerns, so it is a prickly assembly. 

It's made a bit more prickly by the fact that a storm is gathering which threatens to isolate the island even more. As the storm rages at midnight, Nana's body is discovered. It was not a natural death. In an hour, another family member is found dead. Someone is killing them off, one by one. But who? Is there anyone on the island besides family members?

So, what we have here is the classic locked-room mystery, and kudos to Feeney; she handles it quite well. She's no Christie but then nobody is but hers is a creditable effort.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars 

Poetry Sunday: Shakespeare...again

It's too hot to do much of anything. Temperatures in the triple digits (Fahrenheit) do tend to make one somnambulant. So, instead of doing all the (ahem) hard work required to seek out a new poem for Poetry Sunday, I've decided to feature an "old" one from 2017. Actually, of course, it's a lot older than that, yet evergreen and forever young.

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Poetry Sunday: Sonnet 18

July 02, 2017

When I think of poems about summer, this is the first one that pops into my head. It's one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets. It compares the person to whom the poem is addressed to a summer day and concludes that although summer may be an uneven and imperfect season ("Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines..."), for the subject of the poem his/her "eternal summer shall not fade". And it concludes with this famous couplet:

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

He was not wrong.

Sonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This week in birds - #557

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

The perky and energetic Carolina Wren - always a constant in my backyard. 

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The environmental news this week has been dominated by stories of the extraordinary heat dome that continues to linger over the northern hemisphere. Three continents are in its grip. The heat is shattering records and there is no immediate relief in sight. Even in Siberia, the temperature has reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In some places, the heat has been near the limit for human survival. Here in Texas, all we can say is thank goodness (and science) for air conditioning!

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Al Gore warned us about all this 17 years ago.

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A core sample collected fifty years ago highlighted the Greenland ice sheet's vulnerability to a warming climate.

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In the world of Nature, beavers are heat wave heroes in helping other species.

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The best way we can help birds to survive this heat is to get a birdbath and keep it clean and filled with fresh water.

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A pond in a Manhattan park has been covered in toxic algae for years.

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As climate change increases the incidence of wildfires, there are at least five animals that have uniquely adapted to cope with that environment.

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Bison are wild and dangerous animals and tourists who get too close to them often learn that to their peril.

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Invasive snakes have been a plague in Florida for years but this Burmese python may have set a new record.

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And what is an invasive species? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has the definition right here.

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There have been several reports of orcas attacking boats recently but we need to beware of bogus narratives that have arisen about the events.

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A fossil found in China in 2012 appears to show a battle between two species.

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I remember the late summer evenings of my childhood being populated by swarms of fireflies but I seldom see that anymore. 

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In Italy, a brown bear that had fatally attacked a jogger has been given a reprieve from a death sentence by the courts.

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This little beauty is the Blue-eyed Ground Dove from eastern Brazil and there may be no more than sixteen like it left in the wild. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. 

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Speaking of invasives in Florida, this may be the cutest one yet although some Floridians apparently disagree.

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A giant stingray caught in the Mekong River in Cambodia was tagged and released and is providing information to help the river and its ecosystem. 

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Conservationists are attempting to save Florida's reefs by planting coral gardens.

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The bog buck moth is a strikingly beautiful insect that has just been given Endangered Species protection but its habitat is still disappearing.

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It appears that the right whale of the North Atlantic may be in even worse decline than had previously been thought.

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In Borneo, linking patches of wilderness is helping to save wildlife.

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Is invasive Japanese knotweed taking over the world? 

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The geological entity that now calls itself Texas has been here for a very long time and its paleontological plenty could fill a museum.

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In California, a wildlife detective is striving to help ranchers and mountain lions coexist.

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Another potential victim of climate change and extreme weather is the art of the ancient Silk Road.

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To restore the Great Plains, the American Serengeti, it is necessary to restore its wildlife.

Poetry Sunday: Fishing on the Susquehanna in July by Billy Collins

Billy Collins ranks right near the top, if not at the top, of my list of favorite contemporary poets. His poems always seem to speak directly to me, to be written especially for me. Now that is a rare and wonderful talent in a poet! And like him, I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna or any river for that matter...

Fishing on the Susquehanna in July

by Billy Collins

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna

or on any river for that matter

to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month

have I had the pleasure—if it is a pleasure—

of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found

in a quiet room like this one—

a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table—

trying to manufacture the sensation

of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt

that others have been fishing

on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,

sliding the oars under the water

then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to

fishing on the Susquehanna

was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

when I balanced a little egg of time

in front of a painting

in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,

dense trees along the banks,

and a fellow with a red bandanna

sitting in a small, green

flat-bottom boat

holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely

ever to do, I remember

saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on

to other American scenes

of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare

who seemed so wired with alertness

I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

This week in birds - #556

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

Backyard favorites, a pair of White-winged Doves perch on the bars holding feeders full of seeds, preparatory to having their morning snack. Don't they have the most beautiful eyes?

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The big environmental news this week has, of course, been the heat and the misery it has caused. The week before had seen the hottest day on record since those records have been kept, starting in 1979.

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In Texas, in the city of Laredo alone, the extreme heat killed ten people. And here in the Houston area, I can verify that our air conditioning system has been severely taxed, basically running from sunrise to sunset.

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We can only expect more of the same over the next several days as a coast-to-coast heat dome settles over much of the continent. 

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An El Niño climate system is brewing in the Pacific and threatens to turbocharge the already sweltering conditions around the globe. Scientists fear that even more extreme weather may be in the offing as dangerous heat is expected to engulf most of the southern United States for the next several days.

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We have two American Bird Conservancy Birds of the Week to recognize.

This is actually the one from last week, the Eastern Meadowlark, a singer of the grasslands.

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And here is the selection for this week, the wonderful little quail, the Northern Bobwhite.

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It turns out that even rattlesnakes like to have some company.

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The efforts to save and protect the Amazonian rainforest appear to be having an effect as deforestation has fallen there by 26%. 

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The color of the ocean has changed from blue to green over the last twenty years, apparently all due to climate change. 

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Vermont has been devastated by floods this week, again an event that may have been made worse by climate change.

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And there have been some strange things happening on the world's oceans recently as orcas have been attacking and sometimes sinking boats.

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A gray wolf was shot in the wild near Cooperstown, New York in late 2021, leading to speculation that the wolves are slowly making their way back to the Northeast.

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Scientists have located some octopus nurseries, where the animals brood their eggs and young, off the coast of Costa Rica.

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Herds of bison are being returned to Native American lands where they help to restore the Great Plains ecosystems.

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More ominous weather news: A new heat record has been recorded north of the Arctic Circle.

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In still more news from the Arctic Circle, invasive earthworms have been reported there, in an area that has been without worms since the last ice age.

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It seems that dinosaurs once strode the grounds around Washington, D.C. during the Early Cretaceous period. Some might say they still do.

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A sea otter has been snatching surfers' boards off the coast of California. Wildlife authorities are concerned about the otter's aggressive behavior.

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Scientists at Purdue have developed a white paint that, when applied to a roof, can reduce its surface temperature and help to cool the building it covers.  

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Predictably, when television meteorologists in the U. S. report on the climate crisis, they receive threats from some of their viewers. 

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Dust blown from the Sahara Desert is moving across the Atlantic and could affect the weather in South Florida.

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Magpies are famous for stealing all kinds of objects with which to construct their nests but this may be a new high (or low, depending on your perspective): In the Netherlands, they have been stealing sharp metal pins that were meant to keep them away from buildings and they are using the pins to make their nests! 

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As 90 million Americans are facing heat alerts this week, Republicans in Congress are opposing climate funding.

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In some good news for the climate, China is rolling out renewable energy sources at breakneck speed. 

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The Atlantic ecosystem is being adversely affected by the depletion of a tiny fish, the menhaden.

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Here in Houston, there is a thriving bat colony that has become something of a tourist attraction. The Waugh Drive Bridge colony of some 300,000 Mexican free-tail bats take to the sky each night in an amazing spectacle.

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In Florida, the summer months bring a toxic algal bloom to Lake Okeechobee, a bloom that is hazardous to the health of anything coming in contact with or breathing it in.

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What is the world's deadliest animal? It is the tiny mosquito and it is on the move.

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In the midst of all the headlines about hot weather, it should come as no surprise that the Gulf of Mexico is heating up, sometimes to temperatures as high as degrees in the 90s Fahrenheit. 

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Are we now well and truly into a new geologic age, the Anthropocene?

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Finally, Margaret Renkl writes about Frank, the box turtle who came back from the dead. 

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell: A review

I've made it a practice in recent years to write reviews of all the books that I read and post them on Goodreads and here on my blog. It's a way of firmly impressing the book into my memory and I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of doing it and of reading your comments when they come. 

So, I sat down to do my review of Sarah Caudwell's Thus Was Adonis Murdered and found that my memory of the book, which I finished more than a week ago, was blank. Was that a fault of the book or of my memory? Both, perhaps? I saw that I had given the book a two-star rating which I very rarely do, so obviously it had not made a great impression on me. Still... 

In the end, I resorted to reading the synopsis and some of the reviews on Goodreads to jog my memory. Here, then, are my (restored) impressions of the book.

The book is set in Venice and in England and the main characters are a young barrister named Julia Larwood and Professor Hilary Tamar, an esteemed Oxford don. 

Julia had saved her money to take a trip to Venice as part of a tour group. The whole thing turns into a nightmare when a member of the group is murdered and Julia is accused of the murder. The book consists of Julia's letters home to Hilary and the group of barristers in her practice who take the information that she provides and analyze the clues in order to identify the real culprit.

That, in a nutshell, is the plot of the book.

This was the first in a series of four books that featured Professor Hilary Tamar. As such, it was not a bad introduction to the character. Caudwell did a good job, I thought, of developing the personality of Tamar. He comes across as one who enjoys gossip and good food and drink, preferably in a trifecta combination. He would be an entertaining dinner companion. I think I might enjoy spending more time with him.

Poetry Sunday: Attack of the Squash People by Marge Piercy

Anyone who has ever raised zucchini squash should appreciate this poem. Once the zucchini starts producing, there's no stopping it! Moderation is no part of its makeup. The gardener foists the excess on neighbors and friends, relatives and perfect strangers who happen to wander too close. It is the "Attack of the Squash People"! 

Attack of the Squash People

by Marge Piercy

And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
to the long green phallic god
and eat and eat and eat.
They're coming, they're on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!

Zucchini tempura; creamed soup;
sauté with olive oil and cumin,
tomatoes, onion; frittata;
casserole of lamb; baked
topped with cheese; marinated;
stuffed; stewed; driven
through the heart like a stake.

Get rid of old friends: they too
have gardens and full trunks.
Look for newcomers: befriend
them in the post office, unload
on them and run. Stop tourists
in the street. Take truckloads
to Boston. Give to your Red Cross.
Beg on the highway: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.

Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people's gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
Shot, smuggling zucchini into
mailboxes, a federal offense.

With a suave reptilian glitter
you bask among your raspy
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give
too much, like summer days
limp with heat, thunderstorms
bursting their bags on our heads,
as we salt and freeze and pickle
for the too little to come.

Note to readers

The weekly feature "This Week in Birds" will be delayed will not appear this week as I will be entertaining guests. It will be back next week. Thank you to the readers who look for it each week.

A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths: A review

I've been working my way through the series by Elly Griffiths that features forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. This is number five in the series. 

The plot here is that an old friend of Ruth's has died in a house fire, but before he died he had written to her saying that he had made a ground-breaking archaeological discovery. He didn't explain what the discovery was. Could his discovery have had something to do with his death? And could the discovery have been related, as is hinted, in some way to King Arthur? Ruth, of course, is determined to find the answer to those questions and to find out what that mysterious discovery was. 

She travels to Blackpoll which just happens to be the home territory of DCI Harry Nelson with whom Ruth had had a brief - very brief - fling (Harry is married.) which resulted in her getting pregnant, and that resulted in their daughter Kate. So off she goes with Kate and, of course, Cathbad the druid who is Kate's godfather, in tow. 

Then one of Cathbad's friends, who may have some connection to the mystery, commits suicide. And the plot, as they say, thickens.

I find Ruth to be a very sympathetic character with her worries about her weight and her parenting skills. She is sensitive to how others see her and regard her both personally and professionally. Moreover, she is utterly devoted to her daughter but she has not been able to achieve true harmony in her life. Her relationships with men have been problematic and the one with her current boyfriend is faltering, and, based on what we know of him, that is probably a good thing! 

Archaeology has long been an interest of mine. In fact, at one point in my life, I wanted to be an archaeologist, but in the end, I chose another branch of the social sciences. The fact that Elly Griffiths manages to weave strands of information regarding archaeology and history into her Ruth Galloway plots is one of the strengths of this series and one of the reasons that I greatly enjoy reading her books. There are at last count (I believe) fifteen books in the series so I have at least ten more chances to experience that enjoyment.
 

Poetry Sunday: July by Susan Hartley Swett

There's not much doubt about what month it is here in Southeast Texas as the Fahrenheit thermometers reach toward the century mark - or pass it - every day. It can only be one of two and since this is the first one to feature those days when "heat like a mist veil floats," we know. It must be July. 

July

by Susan Hartley Swett

When the scarlet cardinal tells
Her dream to the dragon fly,
And the lazy breeze makes a nest in the trees,
And murmurs a lullaby,
It is July.

When the tangled cobweb pulls
The cornflower's cap awry,
And the lilies tall lean over the wall
To bow to the butterfly,
It is July.

When the heat like a mist veil floats,
And poppies flame in the rye,
And the silver note in the streamlet's throat
Has softened almost to a sigh,
It is July.

When the hours are so still that time
Forgets them, and lets them lie
'Neath petals pink till the night stars wink
At the sunset in the sky,
It is July.

When each finger-post by the way
Says that Slumbertown is nigh;
When the grass is tall, and the roses fall,
And nobody wonders why,
It is July.