Poetry Sunday: Birches by Robert Frost

It's always been one of my favorites of Robert Frost's poems since I first discovered it in high school. Maybe it's because I, too, was once a "swinger of birches."

  

Birches

by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

This week in birds - #599

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

A Cooper's Hawk surveys my backyard looking for a possible meal.

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Heat continues to be a big story. It is now winter in Australia and yet they just endured a day with a high temperature of 107 degrees F. Moreover, a recent study found that deaths from heat-related causes have doubled in this country in recent decades.

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Atlantic hurricane activity has been on the quiet side this summer.

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The world's second-largest diamond ever found has been discovered in Botswana.

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Even in the Sahara Desert it sometimes rains.

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In Iceland, the news continues to be of volcanic eruptions.

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The Northern Bald Ibis was extinct in central Europe for three hundred years but with a helping hand from science, it is making a comeback.

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The Pantanal region of Brazil is being consumed by wildfires that are made worse by ongoing drought.

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Meanwhile, Colombia is being overrun by marauding hippos, a legacy of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar who brought the original ones there. To say they have flourished would be an understatement.

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Here is the week in wildlife pictures as presented by The Guardian.

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Southern white rhinos are a near-threatened species, but there is cause for rejoicing over the recent birth of a male calf at the Melbourne Zoo.

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An endangered Canada lynx has been observed in Vermont for the first time since 2018.

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The scribes of ancient Egypt were high-status individuals but that did not protect them from ergonomic injuries related to their profession.

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Horticulturist Carlos Magdalena wants to save every species of plant on Earth.

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Sparrow weaver birds in Africa appear to learn distinct building styles that require careful thought. Perhaps they aren't such birdbrains after all!

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What is it about the Maldives that attracts tiger sharks?

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The dam removal project on the Klamath River will allow salmon to once again have free run in the river.

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Sacred objects, including skulls, that were looted from the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu years ago are being returned at the behest of the FBI.

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It seems that marmoset monkeys have individual names and they call each other by those names. 

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Bristle worms, venomous sea worms, have been washing up on the Texas coast recently. If you encounter one, don't touch!

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Behold the miracles contained in seeds.

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Prozac is getting into waterways and it is changing the way that fish behave.

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I've long been fascinated by the ancient cuneiform relics from Babylon. A new translation of those relics emphasizes the warnings that astrologers attached to solar eclipses.

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Peregrine Falcons are making a comeback in Yosemite National Park thanks at least in part to rock climbers.

The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin: A review

 

In this second entry in his Malcolm Fox series, Ian Rankin sends Fox and his Complaints team out of Edinburgh. They must go to the town of Kirkcaldy to investigate the possibility that a group of police officers has conspired to cover up the bad behavior of one of their fellow officers, Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of sexual misconduct with women whom he had arrested. His own uncle, who is a former police officer, is the one who brought the charges against him to light. The Complaints team arrives in Kirkcaldy to find no cooperation from their fellow police officers and, in fact, obstruction of their investigation on every hand.

Malcolm Fox intuits very early on in the investigation that all is not quite as it seems. There may be more here than meets the eye, and, since this is an Ian Rankin plot, of course there is.

Fox goes to talk with the uncle. Soon after their conversation the uncle is found dead, at first thought to be a suicide, but things don't add up. What was first put down as a suicide soon is found to be murder. Not only that but the prime suspect in the murder is the nephew, the disgraced Paul Carter.

Then, Paul Carter turns up dead. Curiouser and curiouser.

Meantime, Fox is digging into the background of the uncle's death and finds a link to the days of chaos and violent demonstrations in favor of Scottish independence which took place in the 1980s. This leads him to the death - again, a supposed suicide - of one of the firebrand leaders in the independence movement.

Throughout his investigation, Fox is also dealing with personal trauma as his elderly father's health fails and his only sister's resentment of him (Malcolm) grows.

Rankin has created believable and empathetic characters in this series, and it will be interesting to see how they grow as the series progresses. In this particular book, I especially enjoyed all the "inside baseball" references. Things such as allusions to Midsomer Murders (which I love!), John Le Carre, and a crime scene technician's reference to "woolly suits." When Fox looks askance, she smiles and says there used to be a DI who used that term to refer to the uniformed cops. Yes, we remember that DI well and lament his retirement, but Malcolm Fox is a worthy successor.

Poetry Sunday: Late Summer by Jennifer Grotz

Summer is beginning to wind down in most places in the northern hemisphere although it lingers longer here in Southeast Texas. Still, late August and September fit the description of late summer.

Late Summer

by Jennifer Grotz

Before the moths have even appeared
to orbit around them, the streetlamps come on,
a long row of them glowing uselessly

 

along the ring of garden that circles the city center,

where your steps count down the dulling of daylight.

At your feet, a bee crawls in small circles like a toy unwinding.

 

Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream.

And the noisy day goes so quiet you can hear

the bedraggled man who visits each trash receptacle

 

mutter in disbelief: Everything in the world is being thrown away!

Summer lingers, but it’s about ending. It’s about how things

redden and ripen and burst and come down. It’s when

 

city workers cut down trees, demolishing

one limb at a time, spilling the crumbs

of twigs and leaves all over the tablecloth of street.

 

Sunglasses! the man softly exclaims

while beside him blooms a large gray rose of pigeons

huddled around a dropped piece of bread.

This week in birds - #598

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

A Common Gallinule enjoying a swim.

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To prevent a climate breakdown we not only need to reduce carbon emissions; we need to restore Nature.

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As glacial melt continues and increases, there is a danger of a megatsunami being triggered.

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There are at least 144 species of birds that have not been seen in at least a decade but scientists suspect (hope) they may still be out there somewhere and they have issued a BOLO for the public.

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An Icelandic volcano has erupted for the sixth time since December. 

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Out there in space somewhere is a "speedy little star" that may be on its way out of our galaxy.

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And back here on Earth, there is good news from the world of endangered California Condors: The captive breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo has produced a record-breaking seventeen chicks this year.

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There is renewed hope that the worst-case scenario for the melting of Antarctica may not occur.

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Tree frogs are usually green but a rare blue species has been discovered in Australia.

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The Dovekie is one of the smallest and most abundant members of the Alcid family and it is also the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

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Giant, ancient tropical trees are the anchors of their ecosystems and many of them are dying. Scientists are trying to discover why. 

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Brown Pelicans off the coast of California are also dying in alarming numbers and scientists are working to determine the cause.

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There is much better news from the world of the Peregrine Falcon. In Yosemite National Park the birds are making a comeback.

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And in Botswana, the second largest diamond ever found has been discovered. It is an amazing 2492 carats!

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore: A review

The Van Laar family owns a summer camp for kids in the Adirondacks. Their thirteen-year-old daughter, Barbara, is attending that summer camp in August 1975. When the camp counselor goes to wake her early one morning, she finds Barbara's bunk empty and a cursory search does not find her. Barbara is missing. 

Moreover, fourteen years earlier, Barbara's older brother, Bear, had also vanished when he was eight years old, never to be found. Now it seems to have happened again. But why? Are the two disappearances related and will Barbara be found?

The Van Laars are a seriously damaged family and not just because of these two tragedies. The father, Peter, is a workaholic and an authoritarian ruler of the family. The psychologically damaged mother, Alice, is an alcoholic and pill addict. The grandparents are equally messed up, a harsh grandfather and a silent, obedient grandmother. What a family life for the two kids to have endured!

The story features several strong female characters. There is Judyta Luptack, a former national trooper and now the first female state investigator at the age of twenty-six. She is idealistic and able to view things in ways that others cannot see. Assigned to the Van Laar disappearance case, she hopes to use those skills to find out exactly what has happened.

The camp director is T.J., a no-nonsense, resilient woman. She runs the camp without allowing interference from anyone, including the Van Laars.

There is Louise, who had been an abuse victim and is now raising her younger brother.

Then there is Alice who is struggling to find her place in the world while dealing with losses that threaten to numb her into oblivion.

We get the stories of all these women with their different timelines. It's a tale with several twists and surprises. It is a very well-written story and I would not be surprised to see it nominated for various prizes.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
 

Camino Ghosts by John Grisham: A review

In the 1700s, there was a thriving slave trade of people stolen from their homes in Africa and brought to the Americas. On one of those ships bound for America was an ancestor of Lovely Jackson. Her ancestor survived the wreck of that ship off the coast of Florida and managed to swim, with other survivors, to a small island where they were able to live, free and undisturbed.

Descendants of those first residents continuously inhabited the island until 1955 when Lovely Jackson, the last resident, left what was then known as Dark Isle. She was fifteen years old. 

Now Dark Isle has attracted the attention of a predatory land developer. He wants to build a bridge to the island from the mainland and furnish it with high-priced condos and casinos.

This story, however, begins with a current-day wedding. Writer Mercer Mann marries her long-time beau, Thomas. Mercer mentions to some attendees at the wedding that she is searching for a subject for her next book and her friend, Bruce Cable, owner of Bay Books, suggests the story of Dark Isle.

Lovely Jackson is now in her eighties and lives on Camino Island. Lovely had once written and self-published a book about Dark Isle and some were sold at Bay Books. Bruce arranges a meeting between Lovely and Mercer and both of them eventually accept Bruce's proposal of a nonfiction book about Dark Isle.

Mercer begins her research, hoping to find information that might bolster Lovely's claim to the island. Meantime, Lovely and her legal team of retired lawyer Steven Mahon and his paralegal, Diane Krug, prepare for the legal battle.

This book is actually the third in a series, but it is not necessary to have read the first two to "get" this story. I had not read them, although I might now do so because I found this tale quite intriguing. It is no accident that John Grisham's books sell millions of copies. He is a master storyteller.