R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 73

Bolsa Chica: The Guard

 Bolsa Chica. The Guard. 

#rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #bolsachica #birds #herons #winter #poetry #readmorepoetry2021 

Bolsa Chica: Kingfisher

 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: Barn Owl

 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 

Coetzee's Youth: Poetry

 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.

White Pelican

 Huntington Central Park. White Pelican (Morning Toilet).

#rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #huntingtonbeach #huntingtonbeachcentralpark #centralpark #pelicans #whitepelicans #morning #morningtoilet #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Sunrise @ Lagoon

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

From Eliot's Little Gidding

 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.

Alamitos Bay Marina: Surf Scoter

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!!!

Lesser Goldfinch

 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

House Finches

 Colorado Lagoon. A pair of house finches. Afternoon date.

#rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #longbeach #coloradolagoon #birds #finches #housefinches #afternoon #dating #love #poetry #readmorepoetry2021