For the Malheur Bird Sanctuary

The sanctuary, now held hostage by militia men, began as a way to protect wild birds from being destroyed for the millinery pleasures of ladies' fancy hats. For the sanctuary now in danger, I re-post this poem:

Price of Beauty

The birds of paradise pay

fascinating feathery frills

marketed for millinery trade

magenta bellies and emerald throats

Fascinating feathery frills

a plume craze into extinction

magenta bellies and emerald throats

women wear the males on their heads

A plume craze into extinction

one ounce of feathers for two ounces of gold

women wear the males on their heads

courtship props of the highest price

One ounce of feathers for two ounces of gold

I would just die to have that hat.

Courtship props of the highest price

the birds of paradise pay

From Graham Oak Park

Oregon White Oak

Oaks are opportunists like the pioneers

seeking open territory, uncrowded
by fancy fir or large leaf maple

stout and craggy, crooked limbs gray
and fissured bark they are
the cornerstones of scarcity -

old men of the savannah.

The White oak splits readily

despite its hardness, and oh the gall -

calluses in their foliage,

hard-shelled hollow spheres

and lichen hanging on leafless limbs

impart an eerie appearance on winter nights.

Yet mistletoe, too can be found in the crown

of these majestic elders
mistletoe seeming to say Kiss me 
won’t you please come, 
sit under my canopy the old oak beckons

I have shade and wisdom and years to offer

won’t you, won’t you please

come, sit with me 

Cinquain Snow

Cinquain Snow

Sober snowfall

pillow-white sky

mesmerizing array

Wilson Bentley buffet

flake to individual flake

uniqueness united in drifts

Which is the illusion ~

unique or unity?

Were I to gaze

from a distance

into the glass snow globe

that is my earth today

we snowflakes would swirl and free fall

landing on a communal mound

then melt into puddles

to evaporate in

order to start

over again

or we

millions

would soon collect

on cedar limbs

like abominable

insentient beings

hanging out along Nordic tracks

a cheering crowd of spectators

in this strange race ~ a marcescence

like deciduous in winter

withering, yet still so attached