War!

I watched a war take place this morning. While reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee (that grammar makes for an interesting idea: could an electronic eye be embedded in a coffee cup & used to scan the paper to a speech program for people with sight disability?), I glanced out the sunroom windows to see a war in progress.

This bird, the acorn woodpecker, lives year round with his flock in the oaks outside:

Acorn Woodpecker, from Wikipedia

He and a flockmate or two were harrying a couple of cedar waxwings, who migrate through here in the winter on their way south to Mexico:

Photo source: NatureWorks.org

The cedar waxwings love my neighborhood because of the luscious red berries of the cottoneaster shrubs in my blog header:

US Fish and Wildlife

So the small flock of cedar waxwings was under attack by the small flock of angry acorn woodpeckers. As the waxwings tried to swallow a berry or two, a woodpecker would dive-bomb them. This made the waxwings nervous, and they either would duck and hunker down or would fly off. Having won the skirmish, the woodpecker would then retire to the big oak, where it would raucously screech its triumph with a wing display. Whilst it was doing the victory dance, the cedar waxwing or two would return to gobbling berries, hungry as hell from its long flight from the northern reaches.

I'm a fan of both birds, but I was a bit ticked off at the woodpeckers. The cedar waxwings were not stealing their food supply. Acorn woodpeckers eat insects and acorns, for Pete's sake, which they store for year-round cuisine in the oak, in lovely holes they drill and reuse just for that purpose.

On the other hand, maybe woodpeckers don't know cedar waxwings from a hole in the ground. What they DO know is the terrible starlings who periodically attempt to take over the oaks, and then a real battle ensues between the woodpeckers fighting for their home of decades, maybe centuries, and the starling squatters. The woodpeckers, fighting for homeland, always have won, so far. Their vigilance has paid off. So, dear waxwings, flutter onward, where other berries are in abundance nearby.

My lesson today, then, is to choose my battles carefully, lest I drive away a harmless body merely hungry for kindness and a rest from life's travails.

A Tiny Victory

I hope I'm not the only writer who sometimes can't think of a single thing to say.

All my energy has been devoted to working through a paralyzing anxiety attack this week. I'm grateful that in spite of it I've conducted the basic stuff of living. Small things like paying bills and trimming the Christmas tree have been accomplished with gritted teeth and prayer, and the fear recedes a little more each day.

And today, a migrating flock of cedar waxwings paid a visit to the shrubs outside my office window. Their annual visitation always gives me joy. This morning I was especially thankful, because I have battled a beast and not been defeated. There are many kinds of victories, some so ordinary that they can be easily overlooked. I'm glad my eyes were open today.

(Don't know who to credit for this lovely shot of a cedar waxwing)

Sunday Morning Addendum:

Cedar waxwings everywhere! This morning's flock is huge, gorging on the red-berry bushes! Underneath the bushes, the kitties crouch, yakking at the beautiful birdies!



"Come to me, lovely little birdies!" says Mystery the Cat. The waxwings respectfully decline.



A Good Day for Flying

My local newspaper made me smile this morning when I opened it (not a usual occurrence) and saw its little list of historic moments. On this day in history, in 1742, Handel's "Messiah" was performed for the first time in public, and Dublin was the chosen city. I like the "Messiah" very much and I'm glad Handel channeled it from whatever angel gave it to him.

Also, on this day in 1970, Apollo 13 had nearly reached the moon when a mechanical problem erupted and threatened everyone aboard. But the disaster was averted and the men returned safely home. I like endings like that.

My newspaper's "thought for the day" proves that nothing new is ever thought of under the sun. In the 1700s, French philosopher Charles Louis de Montesquieu pondered happiness and decided:

"Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them."

That sounds like something I heard in an AA meeting last week.

And on this historic day, April 13, 2011, a flock of cedar waxwings paused for breakfast outside my sunroom, as they migrate north again with the coming of spring.


(P.S. The fine photo of a cedar waxwing is from a far better photographer than I but it didn't come with a credit.)

Lust Changes Everything

Lust Changes Everything

Dense fog makes ghosts of trees lining the parkway.
No sun, no sky, no color brighten this bleak place.
Even dogs leashed to dedicated owners droop,
plodding onward on the sidewalk, joyless.

Then they come, the flock of cedar waxwings.
They drift like leaves from trees down to the bushes
where the red berries wait. Gobbling seeds,
these jaunty bandits change everything.
In their red-berry lust, they make even
the coldest heart delightedly sing.



************************************

Wednesday was a day filled with fear, anxiety, excitement, and sorrow. I had the radio performance to look forward to, with a small group of women friends coming over to support me in my anxiety.
I had to take my demented mom out for her Wednesday outing first, so I spent some time in prayer about her. I asked God to give me joy and patience with her infirmity, because she is a cheerful childlike woman whom I used to love deeply. I asked for gratitude for her and love of what she has become. In other words, I prayed thoughts of thanksgiving and acceptance.
I took her Christmas shopping, and everywhere she went, she brought joy to clerks and customers alike with her obvious pleasure. My attitude had changed from one of sorrow to one of grace.
I was frightened of the radio broadcast, thinking I would sound like a dork. I prayed all the way home prayers of thanksgiving for the opportunity to read in public, thanksgiving for the gift of words. I had invited a lot of my AA friends over to support me. They came and loved me up. I sounded like a dork reading but they assured me it was very fine, powerful in fact. We laughed and told stories, ate Joe's scones and Karen's wonderful tart, drank tea and talked of art and sobriety.
I went on my blog and found several of you had listened and it was the cream on the cake. My happiness knows no bounds.
My sense of thankfulness runneth over. I walked through anxiety and fear without having to medicate or drink. I'm in a 12-Step program that teaches me how to respond to negative emotions with prayer and gratitude. My Higher Power blesses me richly every day. My God has provided all that I need and blessed me richly besides. I feel more joy than I can stand at this moment, and I thank you for sharing this experience with me.
May God bless your day, and make you a blessing to others, too.
cheers from chris!

Today, Live on the Radio

Joy

A rain of lemony leaves
backlit by the sun
falls gently on the green grass
forming a yellow pool
lapping at the black trunk
of the tree
and a little black cat
dashes madly through it
as you wish you felt
on this ending sort of day.

***********************

I'm insanely thrilled to be a reader on today's local public radio station program called Ears On Art. There will be several us telling stories and reading our poetry at 4:30 p.m. West Coast time.

If you like, you can listen on your computer to the live broadcast at this link:

http://www.kcbx.org/Pages/Programming/listen_live.html
The link takes you to a live stream from the station programming. You can click on any of the four live-listening streams. If you have a media player, you can share this experience with me. I've never heard my own voice reading my poems, so I am totally excited.

You just need to account for your time difference in regards to U. S. Pacific time.

If you can't listen today, there is a link on the same website to the program archives, where you will find the archived Ears on Art program in a couple of days. Say a prayer for my peace of mind as I sit in my living room with a few AA women, drinking chai tea and eating hubby's wonderful scones. I'll be nervous as hell.

Yesterday morning, after my posting of the poem regarding red berries, cedar waxwings, and control-freak hubby, a huge flock of cedar waxwings, the first of the season, flew in to feast on the red berry bushes. I was jumping for joy at the sight. Then I heard my dear hubby fire up the leaf blower, and I ran out to beg him not to blow away my leaves. We compromised: He could clean the sidewalks, and leave my lovely leaves alone on the grass.

If that isn't synchronicity, I don't know what it is. I do know that God has blessed me richly today. May His blessings be on you, too.

Red Berry Love

You May Not Have All of Me


Luscious red berries wait for the cedar waxwings
to swoop down and gobble them up
to strip the branches bare of berries
like I wait for you to swoop down and gulp
me up like a lukewarm latte, not delicious
perhaps but finished off, the cup stripped bare

Yellow sycamore leaves fall like a congregation
of large butterflies fluttering from the sky
one after another tumbling down in its last dance
before landing on the grass in final repose
The lawn wears a yellow blanket of leaves
and I wait for you to tire of them, to roar
your several engines designed to suck up
dead butterflies because you cannot stand the mess

The red berries are safe from the bushwhacker,
waiting for the cedar waxwings who are late
this year, because the fence protects the shrubs
from your finishing touch, your need for order
and finality. I love you but the wild things
tumbling in my heart cry out against you,
you finisher of things blind to butterflies

You take me lukewarm and swallow the last
drop, not to waste a moment or a latte,
tolerant of my imperfections, loving me
despite the wild things making messes
in our house, our yard, in the mental ward
I wait for you to tire of me as surely you must
when your desire for order overcomes your lust
for the red berries in my heart, untouchable
beyond the fence and safe until the waxwings
come

Want to Rescue a Polar Bear?

From yesterday’s whine about autumn to today’s rant against global warming took about three seconds in this racy brain, which found itself in a doctor’s office reading National Geographic on the shrinking ice cap.

A Swainson’s thrush dashed itself against my sunroom window and broke its neck the other day. I heard the unmistakable thud and went outside immediately, in what I hoped was a rescue operation. It had happened before; I had saved an unconscious hummingbird from the curiosity of my cat and dogs.

This time, the silky olive-brown body was warm, and the bird’s eyes were open: I had hope. I stroked its soft, speckled breast, but its head flopped like a rag doll’s, and its chances looked slim. But hope is hardy and hard to crush, so I wrapped the thrush in a towel and put it safely on the patio, where it could recover and fly away in peace if that should be its fate. And a miracle happened: It didn’t have a broken neck at all! It regained consciousness and flew away.

The accident reminded me of a moment last winter, when I found a cedar waxwing at the foot of the patio door. The waxwing’s body was cold, and there was no hope for recovery. I held it and examined the red waxy points on its wings, caressed its black bandit mask, admired its yellow tail stripe. It was the first time I had a close look at the beautiful birds that come every winter and strip my pyracantha bush of its fat red berries. I can tell you it is much more satisfying to watch the cedar waxwings strip my pyracantha than to hold a dead one in my hand.

I was sorry for my part in its demise; it was my mirror-like door that tricked it into thinking there was sky beyond. It occurs to me there is a link between these birds and the dire future of polar bears: human intervention.

The only polar bear I have ever seen was at the Seattle zoo. In an underground room one could watch the bear swim in its private pool, and I watched in awe as that gorgeous creature stroked past the window.

It won’t be long before two-thirds of the world’s polar bears die off because of the shrinking Arctic ice, said a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey. By 2050, the bears will have lost more than 42 percent of the range they need to live in.

In just the past few years, the ice has shriveled by more than 350,000 square miles. The 16,000 current polar bears are getting squeezed already.

I want to do my part to rescue those of God’s creatures that are in dire straits. So I read about the small things I can do to reduce global warming. Here’s one: I’m told that if every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a little fluorescent one, we’d eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road. Maybe it isn’t much, but it’s a beginning. We replaced three. Where there’s life, there’s hope.

Song of the Arctic

The Arctic is screaming,

a scientist said.

The blanket of ice

on top of the earth

is fraying so fast,

some summer soon

the walrus and wolf,

the white bear and seal

will have no ice to wander.

They are not walkers on water.

They are not Christ.

They cannot redeem the world.

They must have their ice.

We read this in the paper

sipping lattes on Sunday:

take note for a moment

like a twinge in a tooth

but it passes we forget

we are a bowling ball

hurtling down the lane

at a bevy of pins

we soon will shatter

and they are living beings

screaming in the Arctic.

Chris Alba © 2009 Photos courtesies: Cedar waxwing Regent Science Class; polar bear on burg AmeNaevra(Norway); resting bear reallynatural.com