River of Play

Wild Things

I know, I know. I need to post the rest of the geese pictures. But did you know that there's a live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are coming?

Check it out!

Visions of Flight

But I'm going to say something quick, first. Working on a project based on where you live is...strange, wonderful, enlightening. Beyond the sudden ability to visualize older versions of this small city, I've had the unsettling experience of learning more about the place than life-long residents. Now, to be sure, the people I work with know more about what it has been like to live here for their entire lives so far, but I can point out new significant details to them. I'll try to remember to explore the implications of that later.

Now, on to birds!

I mentioned house guests and snow geese a week ago. Right, so we didn't get a chance to see many Sandhill cranes, but we did get to see these other birds instead. I'll try to do this so that the image below will blossom into a big ol' picture if you click on it. Let me know if that works. 

Our first clue about the birds came from the highway.

So we pulled off to investigate further. And walk along the lake with the girl, who remained oblivious to the wall of sound. Geese are, you can see, quite social.

After this lovely time looking at calm birds, something set them off. Or at least quite a few of them.

I'll have to continue this little narrative later...

Time's Winged Chariot

I almost wrote "whinging chariot." Fun with fingers, eh? Though nothing compared to the daughter. Her fingers are simply the most amazing thing she sees. 

We've been busy around here in Lincoln. Houseguests and so on. We took our guests--Wendy's godparents--out to look at the last of the Sandhill cranes. Instead, we ran into snow geese. Tens of thousands of snow geese. I have pictures. And I will post them. But right now I have a narrow window for posting, so I wanted to set up a quick link to a fab/scary comic here (it's the 3/13/09 strip). If you're a PhD student, you must be reading this strip. If not...it'll give you some insight, I expect. Oh, but not this particular one. It's more of a theme link. 

Remind me to write about the new poetry project. And think loving thoughts toward Natural Bridge. 

Reading and Linking

We're into a busy season here at chez Team Libros (a sort of answer to Team Pants as well as a fairly accurate description of the contents of our apartment--an apartment which could be fully carpeted with books to a depth of at least two volumes if such a project were our intention. Which it isn't.). We will have a wealth of visitors this coming weekend, including Wendelynne's godparents. 

I have a stack of reading that waits patiently for me. John Price's Not Just Any Land is here to my left, and a stack of other material. At the top I have Agha Shahid Ali's The Veiled Suite, Nance VanWinckel's No Starling, and David Wagoner's A Map of the Night. The first and last are somewhat lengthy, so I have to gear myself up to commit to them for a time, not an attitude that usually goes with the flaky lightness of poetry collections. I hope they bear the weight well.

And if anyone has suggestions on how to keep a disparate variety of online sites wrapped tightly together, give a holler. 

Nativity

I just thought I'd mark another anniversary of the day of my birth. 

This year, I'm in yet another wild, turbulent place. But I've had a chance to read a couple of poetry books--Karen An-Hwei Lee's Ardor and Todd Boss's Yellowrocket. Two very different books, but both of them explore the kinds of ecologies we encounter in the 21st century. Pick up both. At once. Yes, you, you ecopoets.