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The Old Moon Is A Full Moon That Excites A Loon

The call of the loon
Is plaintive,
And crazy,
And seems to fill
The Harbour,
And
Maybe even

The moon itself.

Because it sounds,
As if,
It can go that far.
It makes my cat/kitten,
Black as night,
With one white mitten,
Shiver

And hiss
And not stray far
From me.
Though Paw
Is tempted,
By the full moon
On the surface
Of the harbour.
And peers,
And mutters,
And even dips,
His one white paw
Into
The yellow,
And mellow,
Wide band
Of moonlight
Streaming
Right at him
Across
The water.


(I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}DE BA. UEL

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Two Crows Joy Play Silly Buggers With A Cat Kitten

The cat/kitten,
Black as a crow
With one white mitten,
(I call him Paw),
Was prowling
By the Lighthouse,
As he likes
To do,


When two crows

Decided
On a bit of
Sport.


They flew toward him,
Then one veered

Left,
And the other
Right.


Paw twisted,
And dodged,
And fell
Ass over tea kettle.


And I,
For the first time
In my life,
Heard
The laughter of crows.

(I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}DE BA. UEL)

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Paw The Cat Makes A Late Late Summer Friend On Partridge Island

Paw,

The all black cat/kitten,

With one white mitten,

Has

A butterfly

On his back.


A blue butterfly,


A small blue butterfly.


Blown in from some storm,


Hitch-hiking on some ship,


Alighting on a cat/kitten’s back

For the warmth

From black black fur.


Or, perhaps to play.


For the small, blue butterfly,


Flutters across the warm

Black back

And

Bats at the agitated

Tail

And

Boxes


Those twitching ears.


And Paw,

The cat/kitten,

Frolics along,

Dashes about,

But never rolls,

Never jumps,

Never snaps his

Sharp sharp teeth.

Because


(Let’s face it)


This is a lot of fun.

I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}DE BA. UEL

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Today There Were Birds In The Air and Birds On The Trees and Birds On The Ground

There were crows in The Crow Tree.

What used to be a regular occurrence is now rare. They were in a right tizzy.

And more spooky than ever, sitting in a ragged line right at the top, above the leaves.

They all – I swear – seemed to be looking to the East.

And later, there were nine pigeons walking up the street en masse, seemingly intent on some destination.

I’d get out of their way if I was out there.

As I watched, a pickup truck came up the hill and did seem to gun its engine as it approached the pigeons

It did pass by without incident, and the pigeons regrouped and continued on their way.


And, at dusk, there were blue jays on my fir tree outside my window.

I heard them (as one can always do with blue jays) but I only saw the one.

They were causing a right ruckus – far more vocal than the earlier crows.


Perhaps this was not Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Nature red in tooth and claw, but – I gotta tell ya – there were a lot of claws.

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Paw, The Cat, Wants To Hunt On Partridge Island

Paw, the cat,
Yes
“The cat”,
‘Cause he is not
“My cat”
No one ever owns a cat,
They are wrong about that.


Is getting old enough
To hunt.
But he can’t decide
(Or so I interpret)
Whether to go for
Fish or Fowl.


‘Cause he eyes the seas,
And he eyes the trees,
Making little, plaintive, chatters.


But the partridge,
That look big enough
To carry him away,
Oh
They must be
Tempting.


I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021 / A lot of stuff have I seen / A lot of stuff to report}

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Sandpipers Love To Hover And Soar And Take Over The World

I was roused from my bed

Tangled in the quilts of the bed

In my lighthouse keeper;s house

Close to my lighthouse

On Partridge Island

In the Bay of Fundy

By wingbeat

A storm of wingbeats

Thousands of wings

Beat beat beating

From thousands of birds

Sandpipers

Twisting in large circles

Around my lighthouse

Hiding my lighthouse

Whirl

Whirl

A  “bind” of sandpipers

A “contradiction” of sandpipers

A “fling” of sandpipers

A “hill” of sandpipers

A “time-step” of sandpipers.

That’s the best

“Time-step”

Because

With every twist

And tun

That flock makes,

They step

They SOAR

Out of time.

{I’m The Lighthouse Poet Laureate of Partridge Island /1821 – 2021/ A lot of stuff have I seen/A lot of stuff to report}

DE BA. UEL

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Razzle Dazzle, Oh Mighty Monarch of the Sky

{I’m The Lighthouse 

Poet Laureate of Partridge Island

1821 – 2021

A lot of stuff have I seen

A lot of stuff to report}

I opened the door

At the bottom of 

My spiral staircase

Twisting

Beside the wall

Just white-washed

In the Spring.


And


Oh! And!!

Came out into 

A sea

A forest

A  cacophony

Of orange

And black

And white-spotted

Brilliant-winged

MONARCH butterflies.


They covered the edifice

From Light

To Entrance steps,

Soaking up


The heat

Of the stones.


I grabbed my trusty

Bum-worn

Wooden chair

And moved it

Distant enough

To watch the

Whole structure at once.


I’m still sitting.


~ DE BA, UEL.

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Dominion Day With Frolicking Beavers In Canada

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Canada is – rightfully – taking a beating with the renewed (certainly not *new*) information and revelations of the horrendous treatment done to our First Nation citizens. This is not only historic, but contemporary, Justice can not help but come too late, But Justice must come.

I will re-post this this story that centres around the country I live in. The human is just an observer.

We know that Canada Day is really Dominion Day.

But – that said – there is still no better symbol for Canada than the industrious beaver. But even hard-working beavers hard-working beavers need their time at play. This is what I saw.

I was walking along the river and heard the strangest noise.

It was one of those noises which, when I found out what It was, sounded exactly as it should. A beaver was chewing at a branch on the bank of the river.

First there were small rolling noises, as the branch went through its hands.

Then the ‘gnaw gnaw gnaw’.

And then the turning noise and the cycles were repeated.

This went on fifteen minutes or so, until the beaver and I both heard noises in the river.We both saw another beaver approaching.

The beaver-at-gnaw quickly went in her direction (though I can only guess which sex was which). They swam toward each other, then rubbed faces. The approaching beaver made small bawling noises like a young calf. They rubbed bodies and sniffed each other. They then swam in different directions.

This performance – the swimming away, the languid circling, the approaches – went on for twenty minutes. A couple of times the ‘gnawing’ beaver clambered over the over beaver’s back, but this lasted just a few seconds. The beaver that had first approached rubbed noses once again, then made the bawling sounds one more time.

I never appreciated how large beavers are until one of them came up on the bank. The water was clear enough to see their feet and tail move underwater (I wonder if the portion out of the water might have the 1/10 proportion of an iceberg). The sun was setting and they became difficult to see.

However they decided to part anyway. One began to go down river toward the harbour and one headed to the other shore.

Perhaps they had just had a date. Perhaps they had just arranged for a date. Whatever the case, I had the distinct impression they were more than friends.

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Birds At War – One Crow Sorrow

 I don’t know how it started – I heard it, but didn’t see it.


There was a harsh thud against the window. If you are used to it (I have heard it enough) you know that a bird has struck the glass. Generally  hard enough to stun or kill. Break their necks. When he was a child, my father saw a bird hit a window so hard that it smashed the glass and ended inside the room. It was dead.


So I got out of my chair and pulled the blinds open and took a look. By the sidewalk was a blackbird, dead enough looking for me to assume it was dead. As it proved to be. But, also on the scene were  five or six blackbirds, calling and fluttering and diving and raising right hell .I thought it an unusual commotion even for the death of one of their own,
And then I looked up into the fir tree on the corner of the property. A third of the way from the ground was a crow. A very cautious crow. A crow twisting its head every which way it could.


Now, I did not see what made the blackbird crash into the window. It is reasonable to assume the crow was somehow the cause. Blackbirds chase crows, and dive bomb them, and worry them, and harry them, and do so with the help of other blackbirds. Crows like to raid their nests and eat their eggs or their young. A crow is a big bird compared to a blackbird. Strength in numbers.


So, I suspect the dead blackbird made an in flight miscalculation while chasing the crow. It got too close. Then, as it tried to get out of range, it crashed into the window. I was quick to look out the window, and the crow was already in the tree. It may have lunged at the blackbird, or spread its wings. or aimed its beak. The blackbird moved too quickly in its attempt to get out of the way.


But the crow was not out of the woods yet. It wasn’t going to take to the sky and attempt an escape. A half dozen blackbirds could inflict injury on the crow. It was going to stay put.


I had the unusual experience of being nearly level with the crow. I watched it. I watched its head. I watched its eyes. Birds have active, cautious, suspicious eyes. Their eyes are large in relation to their heads. Their eyes are jammed into their eye sockets, so they are generally  unmovable. Consequently, when they want to move their eyes, they have to move their head.


So, this crow was moving its head a lot.

Five or six blackbirds kept hovering and diving. Even two blue jays joined in the ruckus, screeching in the background at all the commotion.

This went on about five minutes, then the other birds departed. A couple of minutes later, the crow lifted from the branch. It had murder in its eyes.

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