Friday, March 21, 2008

Things I Will Miss

I expect as it gets closer and closer to when I'll be moving and now that most everyone knows that I am going, I will be only melancholy and nostalgic about what I'm leaving. So expect a number of posts with this same title.

Today gets a sub-title: Birds and other flying things:
  • The geese that fly overhead to land in the pond at the college down the street.
  • The cardinals that stare into our back room from the two trees that are not, but remind me of, a magnolia and a Japanese maple.
  • The ducks that are swimming in couples around the pond. The same pond where the geese are trying to land.
  • The white-bellied hawks that dive from the tall trees (again, what kind? Alder? Sure, that sounds good) as I drive toward school on the big street named after the big lake.
  • Fireflies. When my mom's boyfriend came to visit, he was so surprised. What are these flying lights?
  • These black and white tit-mice that land on the sycamore that I watch out the bathroom and hallway windows.
  • The black and white woodpecker that eats from that same sycamore.
  • The squirrels that seem to fly from branch to branch, from sycamore to hyacinth to fence to pine.
  • The chipmunks that chase the squirrels.
  • The red-tail hawk that sometimes appears on the sycamore looking for squirrels to eat, and, who one winter, caught and ate a squirrel while perched on top of the snow, leaving the white spattered red.
  • The leaves that span seventy-five colors of red--from black cherry to neon pink-- falling to the sidewalk, on the sidewalk.
  • The sparrows, plucking clean the already-bare winter branches.
  • The spring blossoms, having fallen on the flower beds, blanketing them in May like so much snow did just the other day in April.

4 comments:

Lisa B. said...

How lovely to have lived there and to have noticed all these things. Your descriptions make me think of childhood books which must all have been set in the midwest, because your post is the scene for them.

What Now? said...

I wandered over to Otterbutt a few days ago from some blog (I now can't remember which) and got hooked on your archives, which have been a fabulous distraction from all the grading I'm supposed to be doing on my spring break. And now I'm fretting that we actually met at MLA and I just don't remember because I found the blogger meet-up overwhelming enough.

Anyway, I wanted to say both that I'll now be a regular reader and congratulations on your new job!

P said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
P said...

wow! great post. And some fans I see! Fantastic. Remember when we went to New York and Egg saw fireflies for the first time? I know you will miss it, but it is the winter that reminds us of the beauty of spring. And the moves from forest lakes to desert mountains that remind us of the beauty in biota.