Loose Leaf Notes

1. Occupation: Birdwatcher   

2. I think of April as a fling, whereas May could be the real thing.

3. Last week we went from my grandson’s Little League (that’s him above as catcher) to museums and a workshop with Michael Meade. It was a weekend of erotic exotics, sipping sherry and enjoying double blossom cherry trees in D.C.

4. What flower has varieties that can look like a dragonfly, a drone, a pelican and Goofy the dog in a funny hat ?  HERE.

5. “Name all the sports without ball in the name.”  – My 8-year-old grandson Liam

6. You can catch up, catch on, catch you later, catch a break, catch someone red-handed or off guard.  There’s catch of the day, catch-22, a catch that catches your eye and an early worm that catches the worm.  Catch is one of those words that begins to look and sound unreal the longer I say it.   

7. When we got home from D.C. I felt like my girls (I call our goldfinches, the “golden girls.”) had broken up with me. I filled the feeders but they never came. But I was patient and the below (rose-breasted grosbeak) eventually happened.

8. Medicine Wheel Moon – The sun plunges low / Jets trail like tribal arrows / Vultures circle like warriors / and startled doves cry / The moon meets the horizon / like a sacred hoop rising / Like a white buffalo omen / Dreamcatcher of hope.

9. The single greatest thing we can do to stop climate change is to compost the GOP. “– My Dharmacratic poet friend Will

10. Should I Wish for a Head? That’s what I asked myself while standing next to Rodin’s headless Walking Man sculpture that was next to the Yoko Ono’s Wishing Tree in the Hirshhorn Garden in D.C.  See HERE.

11. And really the question is ‘how do you bring your life down to an essence. What do you want to bring with you and what can you let go off?’  – A clip from my interview with Creative on Purpose’s Scott Perry about my poetry book “Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife” HERE. Full Audio HERE.

12. “A lot of poetry begins as a secret and covert activity. So, poetry is sort of a diary without the lock, a diary that you want people to read.” Billy Collins

13. When a boy turns thirteen / and his voice rises and cracks / Don’t say That’s not your voice / And when the goldfinch at the bird feeder / sings praises to the sunflower / listen – Read “What is a Poem?” in its entirety HERE.

____________Thirteen Thursday