BIRDCAST

by David Chorlton

World Migratory Bird Day May 11, 2024
BirdCast

Two million birds crossed the county last night

moving to where starlight

lands. It’s springtime in the sky, two thousand

four hundred feet at midnight high,

feather bright and quiet

along the true path north. It’s dark enough

 

up there to feel

the pull of a remembered place

while down here the sleeping mountains roll

to one side or the other, and the creeks

keep flowing on the way

to being rivers. Forests sparkle

with the sounds of insects,

the desert exhales, radios are tuned

 

to the secrets only darkness knows

and they play softly while

the count begins. Orioles, flycatchers

and chats; there they go, a million, a thousand,

a hundred and the one

grosbeak who already knows

the tree she will nest in.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix, now living close to an extensive desert preserve that runs through the city. His neighbors include coyotes and the hawk families that nest between the human and natural worlds. They often make their way into his painting and writing life.

A TIME TO REST

by Tina M. MWP

after Jacob Lawrence’s "Daybreak - A Time to Rest," 1967.

in celebration of Harriet Tubman’s 200th Birthday

"Daybreak—A Time to Rest" (tempera on hardboard) by Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) is one in a series of panel paintings that tell the story of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913), the famed African-American woman who freed the enslaved using a fragile network of safe houses called the Underground Railroad. This abstracted image emphasizes Tubman's bravery in the face of constant danger. Lying on the hard ground beside a couple and their baby, she holds a rifle. Her face, pointing upward to the sky, occupies the near center of the canvas, her "body" surrounded by purple. Tubman's enormous feet, grossly out of proportion, become the focal point of the work. The lines delineating her toes and muscles look like carvings in a rock, as if to emphasize the arduous journeys she has made. Reeds in the foreground frame the prone runaways. Three insects(walking stick, beetle, and ant) are signs of activity at daybreak. —Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.9, no.3, June 2016

Blue bears down on the black horizon as twilight arrives

awakening an ant, a beetle and a walking stick.

The sandy bank of the lake, cooling all night from the days

harsh heat, offers a place to rest among the green reeds.

A family at last finds respite after trekking across perilous

terrain, the whites of their eyes disappear as the light rises.

But can they rest, people fleeing, trying to break free

from anvils strapped to their ankles? 

Even she, with resilient legs, brawny feet, calloused toes, 

toes that hold the silhouette of a mother cradling a baby,

half lays in the golden dunes, eyes to the sky, rests 

her fingers around the neck of the rifle.

Tina M. MWP (she/her) is committed to serving others through her professional life as an engineer and innovator in public health, and in her personal life, as a volunteer and tutor, and now, as a writer. She writes creative nonfiction and poems about belonging, identity, the power of language, and nature. She lives with her family in Rockville, MD.  

WHO OWNS THE EARTH?

by Martin Elster

From “The Untold Benefits of Climate Change” by Kendra Wells at TheNib.

Renowned Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson has said that without insects the rest of life, including humanity, “would mostly disappear from the land. And within a few months.” 
—National Geographic, August 6, 2019


We own the earth. We buzz or hug
you in your bed, at times will bug
you when you taste like toothsome prey.
We flit around your cold buffet.
We’re sweat bee, darner, skeeter, slug,

the flea that’s pestering your pug.
We’re everywhere. You might go, “Ugh!”
when centipedes cruise by. Yet, say
we left the earth.

Perhaps you’d shout with glee, or shrug.
But think: no cherry, apple, mug
of honeyed tea, nor silver tray
of leafy greens would come your way.
You see, Big Brain? Don’t be so smug!
We own the earth.

Martin Elster serves as percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Honors include co-winner of Rhymezone’s 2016 poetry contest, winner of the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition 2014, third place in the SFPA’s 2015 poetry contest, and three Pushcart nominations.