January 19: What came to pass

Cold hard facts of deer 

tracks in the snowy yard:

it's all happened before. 

January 18: Flurries

Recurring motif:

flurry of crow flight

within early swirling snow.

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January 17: Otter joy

We joined some friends in chasing a bird today in Winter Harbor--Maine's second record of a Black-throated Sparrow, a bird that belongs in Arizona--and after we found it, did some sea-watching on the Schoodic Peninsula. Amid the sea ducks and alcids, we were thrilled to spot three otters swimming together with grace and power through the sizable swells. Then we heard a loud chirping noise that at first we thought belonged to some strange bird, but which we quickly realized was being made by a fourth otter. It joined the original three otters, with a seal close behind it. The four otters rapidly headed for shore together and climbed up into some sort of den in the rocks. We think the chirping was some sort of alarm call, to warn the others of the seal. An exciting experience to witness as we huddled, cold and awkward, on shore: animals completely at home in a habitat so inhospitable to humans.

Four river otters

snaking through sea swells--

how to live in one's body.

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January 16: White world, bare branches

While shoveling snow
I count five squirrel nests
amid the bare branches.

January 15: Dial tone

Answering machine

talks to an empty house.

You have no new messages.

 

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January 14: Monhegan dream

In my dream last night

the boat's canceled,

I'm happily stuck on island.

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January 13: While we were away

Branches on the lawn--
while we were away
trees and wind threw a party.

January 12: Air travel

A friend from home was flying back from Miami the same day we were (we had dinner with him last night, in fact). He flew out at 7:00 a.m. and went through New York. We flew out at 10:30 a.m. and had a layover in lovely Newark. Yet somehow, we all ended up meeting our baggage in Portland at 4:00 p.m. Ah, the joys and vagaries of air travel.

He left hours before us
and yet here we all are, home,
at baggage claim.

January 11: Last day in the Keys

Paul came up with another haiku today, to commemorate our morning visit to the Key West Cemetery:

 

Epitaph on stone

reads, "I told you I was sick."

Death gets the last laugh.

 

We also came upon a stone for a family's pet deer:

 

Later today we visited the National Key Deer NWR on Big Pine Key for the first time to see the little Key Deer, a subspecies of the (much larger) White-tailed Deer.

 

We once had a dog

bigger than this dark-eyed doe

and much less placid.

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January 10: Southernmost haiku

At the Key West Literary Seminar this afternoon, former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins addressed this year's theme "Shorts" by reading several haiku. Because it was Billy Collins, they were humorous haiku. My husband Paul and I were thus inspired.

 

Me:

Free bacon happy hour

with $2 cocktails--

don't hit that rooster!

 

Paul:

Eating key lime pie

we pass the all-nude strip club--

au revoir, Key West!

 

And here's a pair of mating birdwing butterflies at the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory, for some tropical color

 

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January 9: Impermanence

Stopped in a Tibetan market tucked inside St. Paul's Episcopal Church and bought from a Buddhist monk a bracelet made of turquoise skull beads. The helpful enclosure reads: "Buddhists incorporated skull images into bracelet to represent the impermanence of life and the limits of human knowledge. Skull-shaped bracelet beads help chanters reflect upon the inevitability of death and the necessity of embracing lives filled with compassion."

We pondered death further on a walk amid the white crypts and statuary of Key West Cemetery: all those above-ground tombs, and also, quite surprising to us, many very large reptiles crawling around the kingdom of the dead as if they owned it.

Tibetan skull beads.

Walk through the cemetery

startled by iguanas.

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