R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 10

Olive-sided Flycatcher

 

Peter Handke

“But those orange trees were planted,” said Judith. “They’re not nature.” “When the sun shines through and plays in the leaves, I forget that,” said John Ford. “I also forget myself and my existence. Then I wish that nothing would ever change, that the leaves would go on moving forever, that the oranges would never be picked and everything would stay just the way it is.” “Then I suppose you’d like people to go on living as they have always lived?” Judith asked. John Ford gave her a gloomy look. “Yes,” he said. “We would. Up to a century ago the people who thought about progress were the people who had the power to bring it about. Until recently new ideas originated with the powerful; with princes, industrialists, public benefactors. Today the men with power have ceased to be benefactors of mankind; at best they do things that benefit certain individuals. Today all the new ideas come from the poor and powerless. The men with the power to change anything have stopped thinking. So no change is possible.” “Is that what you want?” Judith asked. “No, I don’t want it,” said John Ford. “But that’s what runs through my head when I look down there.”

Peter Handke

: ... it was as though a whole nation had set its lips to a giant flute—a long-drawn-out screech so bestial and brutal, but at the same time, what with the billowing clouds of black smoke and the vastness of the Mississippi, so proud, so grandiose, that, embarrassed and yet bodily shaken, I could only look off to one side. So overpowering was that signal that, splintered by fear, I lived a dream of America that up until then I had only heard about. It was a moment of expertly organized resurrection, in which the things around me ceased to be unrelated, and people and landscape, the living and the dead, took their places in a single painful and theatrical revelation of history. Theatrically flowed the Mississippi, theatrically the tourists moved from deck to deck, while an old man’s deep, far-carrying voice told the story of the great riverboats over the loudspeaker: the new era of travel and commerce they had initiated, steamboat races, black slaves loading firewood by the light of the moon, boiler explosions; and finally, how the railroads had taken the place of the riverboats. Sick as I was of loudspeaker voices on tours, I could have listened to that dramatic voice forever.

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Olive-sided Flycatcher @ Bartlett Park in Huntington Beach CA. 

Spent some time chasing desert birds in Phoenix. Now I'm having a blast with our spring visitors in So Cal (this little guy jumped high on his perch just as I was calling it a day). Will be leaving for Michigan in less than a week. 

Happy Hump Day and make the most of your spring. 

Another update on the "state of birds" in North America (which to some degree parallels the "state of the world"), and it's not looking good. 😢

#rlswihart 

#socal

#huntingtonbeach

#bartlettpark

#birdsofnorthamerica 

#birdsonearth 

#thestateofFLY

#flycatchersofinstagram 

#olivesidedflycatcher 

#nature

#beauty

#poetry

#readthewhitebird

#readmorepoetry2025💗

Peter Handke

When the child saw a representation of nature, one of the painter’s pictures, for example, she never thought of asking whether there really was such a scene, and if so where, because the copy had replaced the original forever. I remembered that, unlike her, I myself as a child had always wanted to know where the object represented actually was. In our house, for instance, there was an oil painting of a glacier landscape with a mountain hut at the lower edge. I had always been convinced that this landscape and this hut existed in nature; I even thought I knew where the painter must have stood, and when someone told me the picture was pure imagination I couldn’t believe it.

Peter Handke

I kept looking to see when the Ohio license plates would give way to Indiana plates, when instead of THE BUCKEYE STATE the plates on the cars we passed would say something else. Then there began to be more and more cars from THE HOOSIER STATE. Once we were in Indiana, the dry mud began to flake off my trousers, but still my impatience grew; I counted the milestones that still separated us from Indianapolis, because they were the only sign of change in the unchanging landscape.

Peter Handke

Suddenly it seemed to me that the country we had been driving through was country that one could also arrive in.

Gilded Flickers in Phoenix AZ

Gilded Flickers @ South Mountain Park (Pima Canyon) in Phoenix AZ. Amazing birds, amazing place. A bit too hot for my "ideal" but beautiful and fun nevertheless. Enjoy your weekend!!!💗🇺🇦🙏

#rlswihart

#phoenixaz 

#southmountainpark

#pimacanyon

#flickersofinstagram 

#gildedflickers 

#desertfeathers 

#nature

#beauty

#poetry

#readmorepoetry2025💗🇺🇦

Peter Handke's Short Letter, Long Farewell

“I’ve lost interest in buying clothes,” I said. “I hardly look at shop windows any more. In the past I wanted to wear something different every day, now I wear the same thing for months. As for my shirt, there was no laundry service at the hotel yesterday.” “What have you got in your bag?” Claire asked. “Underwear and books,” I said. “What are you reading now?” “Green Heinrich by Gottfried Keller.” She hadn’t read it and I said I’d read parts of it to her. “Maybe tonight, before we go to bed,” she said. “Where will that be?” I asked. “In Donora, south of Pittsburgh,” she said. “I know a motel there, it’s off the road, it will be quieter for the child. I hope we get that far, it’s almost three hundred miles and the Allegheny Mountains are in between. Have you learned to drive in the meantime?” “No,” I said. “Never again will I let anybody examine me. The thought of someone asking me questions and making something depend on my answers has become intolerable to me. In the past, say ten years ago, it would have disgusted me and made me furious, but I’d have let them examine me. Now I won’t.”

R L Swihart's The White Bird