Poem for Saturday and Winter Wetlands

I Want to Save This Whale 

By Lisa Olstein 

The one right in front of me

on e-mail, a chain message

forwarded by my mother

on the first day of this new year.

She’s tangled in nets and lines

and there’s only one way to

get her out, she tells us

with her bathtub-sized eyes

one at a time because we

have to swim around to see.

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We had rain in the forecast for Saturday afternoon, so we ate brunch and got out early to try to beat it, driving to Sammamish to Hazel Wolf Wetlands. We were only partly successful -- it did start drizzling while we were on the trail around the beaver lodge -- but we mostly missed the sort of deluge we had earlier in the week, and we got to see lots of winter ducks and some songbirds (plus the Pokemon Fidough and its evolution Dachsbun arrived in the game, so I caught a bunch of those).

 

Then we came home, watched most of the Ravens game (they beat the Browns, yay), I did some reading, we had burgers for dinner. We also talked to Paul's father, who unfortunately has covid; he didn't have symptoms, but someone on his hall had it so they tested him. After most of the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game, we watched Love of the Irish, which I was hoping would be more Ireland travelogue and less cheesy romance but it was still nice to see scenery in Cork and I've always liked Moira Kelly.

Poem for Friday and Fairbanks Fowl

Passing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway Eighty 

By Jane Mead 

What struck me first was their panic.

Some were pulled by the wind from moving

to the ends of the stacked cages,

some had their heads blown through the bars—

and could not get them in again.

Some hung there like that — dead —

their own feathers blowing, clotting

in their faces. Then

I saw the one that made me slow some —

I lingered there beside her for five miles.

She had pushed her head through the space

between bars — to get a better view.

She had the look of a dog in the back

of a pickup, that eager look of a dog

who knows she's being taken along.

She craned her neck.

She looked around, watched me, then

strained to see over the car — strained

to see what happened beyond.

That is the chicken I want to be.

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I lost Friday morning to a long phone call with my friend Alice, so it was worth only getting a couple of little chores done. Then I had lunch and watched the first half of War of the Rohirrim with Kristen, so that was a good afternoon! We had rain a lot of the day, but it stopped early enough for us to take a walk, and three eagles were out -- two in the tree over our porch. 

I missed most of the day's football, but we watched this week's Silo (yay Silo 2), The Agency (which better not fridge any of the women), and most of the season premiere of The Way Home because I forgot that had to be watched in real time so we missed the beginning. I have a bunch of fall photos I never posted around Irish trip pics, so here are some poultry pics from Fairbanks Farm:

Poem for Thursday and Winter Birds

January 

By William Carlos Williams 

Again I reply to the triple winds 

running chromatic fifths of derision 

outside my window:

                                   Play louder. 

You will not succeed. I am 

bound more to my sentences 

the more you batter at me 

to follow you.

                                   And the wind, 

as before, fingers perfectly 

its derisive music. 

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It rained all day Thursday and was dark and gloomy. I spent the morning organizing 2024 files and photos before I have too many 2025 files and photos to deal with, then we ate lunch and watched the delayed Sugar Bowl -- I think every single team I've rooted for in the major bowl games has lost. We went for a walk in the afternoon despite the weather, which was worth it because eagles and geese were at the park. 

When we got home, I had my Thursday night chat with all the regulars, then we ate leftover Beecher's macaroni and cheese with veggie chicken for dinner while Ole Miss was blowing out Duke in the Gator Bowl. We finished off our animated Tolkien week with The Return of the King, which feels much more kid-oriented like The Hobbit than The Lord of the Rings. Some of the many waterfowl we saw at Juanita Bay yesterday:

Poem for Wednesday and Juanita Bay Birds

Good Bones 

By Maggie Smith 

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

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It was a lovely New Year's Day that started with chat with my high school friends, for which I was late because I had no idea what day of the week it was when I woke up. But everyone made it, with guest appearances by everyone's husbands and a few children including Adam and Haley. We had leftover eggnog waffles for lunch while watching the back-and-forth of the Peach Bowl. 

Then we went to Juanita Bay Park to see the migrating trumpeter swans. We also got to see bald eagles, wood ducks, mergansers, wigeons, gadwalls, buffleheads, mallards, and green-winged teals, plus lots of evidence of beavers having gnawed away chunks of trees that fell down in the storm that took out our power. It was overcast but not drizzly and we could see the Cascades driving back. 

We stopped at Safeway for lemon juice so Paul could make eggs benedict for dinner, which we ate after the disappointing end of the Rose Bowl and watching War of the Rohirrim with Cheryl. Because the Sugar Bowl was postponed after the horrible attack in New Orleans, we then watched the Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings after lighting candles for the last night of Chanukah.

Poem for the New Year

The Year's Awakening 

By Thomas Hardy 

How do you know that the pilgrim track

Along the belting zodiac

Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds

Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds

And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud

Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,

And never as yet a tinct of spring

Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling;

     O vespering bird, how do you know,

          How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,

Hid in your bed from sight and sound,

Without a turn in temperature,

With weather life can scarce endure,

That light has won a fraction’s strength,

And day put on some moments’ length,

Whereof in merest rote will come,

Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;

     O crocus root, how do you know,

          How do you know?

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I had a fairly quiet final day of 2024. Paul worked half a day, so I did chores in the morning, then we ate lunch while watching Michigan beat Alabama. In the afternoon, we did some shopping (I bought two dresses to wear for wedding events, plus two pairs of extremely discounted Kohl's holiday pyjamas and a sweater). I got home late for my usual Tuesday night call, but since only three of us were there, we didn't watch Voyager, just chatted for a while. 

Cheryl and I watched Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, which had even more plot holes than previous weeks (what kind of pirate planet demolishes working ships instead of selling them or stripping them for parts?) but is still fun Goonies in Space. Then Paul and I got in the mood for the Rankin-Bass Tolkien movies, so we put on The Hobbit, which is always better than I expect. Now people are shooting off fireworks across the lake, though it's not midnight yet!