Without Lifting A Finger

 Bolsa Chica. The Guard.  #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #bolsachica #birds #herons #winter #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 

 Bolsa Chica. Belted Kingfisher. Looking like the sovereign of all he surveys. Another first (for me) @ Bolsa Chica. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #bolsachica #birds #kingfishers #beltedkingfisher #theking #royalbeauty #poetry

 Bolsa Chica. I was on the harbor side of Warner, she (but I'm guessing: supposedly females have more "speckling") on the Bolsa Chica side, surveying the empty field in the late morning sun. My first owl (with or without camera). I was partly blinded too: thought she was a hawk until I got her home. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #bolsachica #huntingtonharbor #owl #firstowl #barnowl #raptors #beauty #hunter #hunted #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 

 On the basis of the poems he has heard on the radio and nothing else, he knows Brodsky, knows him through and through. That is what poetry is capable of. Poetry is truth. But of him in London Brodsky can know nothing. How to tell the frozen man he is with him, by his side, day by day?  Joseph Brodsky, Ingeborg Bachmann, Zbigniew Herbert: from lone rafts tossed on the dark seas of Europe they release their words into the air, and along the airwaves the words speed to his room, the words of the poets of his time, telling him of what poetry can be and therefore of what he can be, filling him with joy that he inhabits the same earth as they. ‘Signal heard in London – please continue to transmit’: that is the message he would send them if he could.

 Huntington Central Park. White Pelican (Morning Toilet). #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #huntingtonbeachcentralpark #centralpark #pelicans #whitepelicans #morning #morningtoilet #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Long Beach. Sunrise @ Colorado Lagoon (Saddleback in Background). What you can miss if you get up too late. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #LongBeach #coloradolagoon #saddleback #sunrise #earlybirds #coffeeinsteadofworms #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

 If you came this way,  Taking any route, starting from anywhere,  At any time or at any season, It would always be the same: you would have to put off Sense and notion.  You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity  Or carry report. You are here to kneel  Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more  Than an order of words, the conscious occupation  Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.  And what the dead had no speech for, when living,  They can tell you, being dead: the communication  Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.  Here, the intersection of the timeless moment  Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

Long Beach. Alamitos Bay Marina. Had no idea what they were (from far away they could've been regular ducks) until I got home and looked them up: surf scoters. There were more but they too quickly drifted out of range. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #longbeach #alamitosbay #alamitosbaymarina #ducks #seaducks #scoters #surfscoter #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 #Happy40thMeg!!!

 Marine Stadium. Long Beach. Saw a bunch of lesser goldfinches near Marine Stadium. Caught one. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #LongBeach #marinestadium #birds #finches #lessergoldfinch #poetry #readmore #walking #windytoday

 Colorado Lagoon. A pair of house finches. Afternoon date. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #longbeach #coloradolagoon #birds #finches #housefinches #afternoon #dating #love #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 

 ‘Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion,’ says Eliot in words he has copied into his diary. ‘Poetry is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality.’ Then as a bitter afterthought Eliot adds: ‘But only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.’

 Michigan. Muskrats down the road from Mom. Very industrious little guys. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #michigan #muskrats #muskrathouse #letthembe #winter #nature #poetry #ReadMore #winterwaterwonderland 

 Michigan. Mute swans (yellow/orange bills compared to the trumpeter's black) are considered "invasive" compared to the indigenous trumpeter. Still beautiful and I guess they stay the winter. Saw these two close to Grand Rapids. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #michigan #birds #winterbirds #swans #muteswans #invasive #stillbeautiful #poetry #readmorepoetryin2021

From Youth : She has issued no reproofs, made no demands; she has even paid the abortionist herself. In fact, she has taught him a lesson in how to behave. As for him, he has emerged ignominiously, he cannot deny it. What help he has given her has been fainthearted and, worse, incompetent. He prays she will never tell the story to anyone.  His thoughts keep going to what was destroyed inside her – that pod of flesh, that rubbery manikin. He sees the little creature flushed down the toilet at the Woodstock house, tumbled through the maze of sewers, tossed out at last into the shallows, blinking in the sudden sun, struggling against the waves that will carry it out into the bay. He did not want it to live and now he does not want it to die. Yet even if he were to run down to the beach, find it, save it from the sea, what would he do with it? Bring it home, keep it warm in cotton wool, try to get it to grow? How can he who is still a child bring up a child?  He is out of his dept...

 Michigan. A regular snowglobe. Around Mom's feeder. The red-bellied woodpecker. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #michigan #snowglobe #birds #winterbirds #birdfeeder #woodpeckers #redbelliedwoodpecker #poetry #readmorepoetry #offcourse #pifmagazine #quadrantmagazine 

BEDLAM  Before departure it’s a madhouse  papers objects flying around  as if they feel they will lose a right to gravity when Mr Cogito flies off  unpaid bills  unsettled debts incurred on a word of honor  unwritten poems  futureless contracts  colorless flirtations  beer left unopened  all of it flies around in Mr Cogito’s head the mess is growing  what will happen if he doesn’t manage to tame the elements after all you can’t put off going away on holiday forever  so one day or night when it’s all ending Mr Cogito will prop himself up on the pillows of an express train covering his chilly knees with a blanket and conclude it will all go on as before the holidays  surely it will be worse than in Mr Cogito’s time but it will always go on

 

Borrego Springs. Sculptures in Galleta Meadows. Dark sky community. Cool traffic circle with a cool name: Christmas Circle. After I hit Borrego Springs (on the way back from my second trip to Salton Sea) and went through Julian to get an apple pie: I chose Mom's. Yummmm. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #saltonsea #borregosprings #galletameadows #sculpture #desertart #christmascircle #travel #stayclose #poetry #readmorepoetry

 Last Post on Bombay Beach. Bombay Estates. Grab a spray can. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #bombaybeach #bombayestates #grabaspraycan #art #abandonedbuildings #travel #stayclose #poetry #readmorepoetry

 Bombay Beach. Last Resort. We parked in a empty lot next to the house with an old hearse and clam shell. We followed "everyone else." #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #saltonsea #bombaybeach #nothing #hearseandclam #emptylots #desert #travel #stayclose #california #winter #howlowcanyougo #poetry #readmorepoetry #offcourse #piffmagazine #quadrant

 Salton Sea. Bombay Beach. More Art. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #saltonsea #savesaltonsea #bombaybeach #airplanes #installations #sculpture #art #travel #stayclose #birdsbirdsbirds #poetry #readmorepoetry #offcourse #piffmagaxine #quadrantmagazine 

 Rereading the trilogy. Bought them as a set on Kindle: "Scenes from Provincial Life." From "Boyhood": Though he goes to the bioscope every Saturday afternoon, films no longer have the hold on him that they used to have in Cape Town, where he had nightmares of being crushed under elevators or falling from cliffs like the heroes of the serials. He does not see why Errol Flynn, who looks just the same whether he is playing Robin Hood or Ali Baba, is supposed to be a great actor. He is tired of horseback chases, which are all the same. The Three Stooges have begun to seem silly. And it is hard to believe in Tarzan when the man who plays Tarzan keeps changing. The only film that makes an impression on him is one in which Ingrid Bergman gets into a train carriage that is infected with smallpox and dies. Ingrid Bergman is his mother’s favourite actress. Is life like that: could his mother die at any moment just by failing to read a sign in a window?

 More pics from the Salton Sea. #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #saltonsea #stateparks #travel #stayclose #poetry #readmorepoetry2021