| Author |
Message |
tess
Member
Post Number: 86
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 11:04 am: | 
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Sunrise
Horizons just out of reach
See/Salty tears
spilling down my cheeks
Canoebear,
Turtle's s/pace we seek
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sundown
Member
Post Number: 187
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 11:31 am: |
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Sunrise Mornings of possibilities...
all regrets and unanawerables swept-slept ashore.
wonder
cedarwoodsmokecoffeearoma
mistdriftings
sunshutterspeeds
a mournfullyloon
a fullyloonmorn
a whipswindsigh
a peachmorningedsky
a soulbonealone
waveslapping its wishes...
Sundown |
paul_hammersten
Member
Post Number: 280
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 7:58 pm: |
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My wilderness this summer has just entered the true realm of wildness.
Between working on hydrants this afternoon, I spent some time looking at the large seal on a bed of ice in the back of a pickup down by the Stage Harbor fish pier. A large part of the seal had been bitten off by a great white shark. State authorities were on hand making complete records.
It was just me in my wet suit and one seal in the water Sunday out at the Head of the Meadow in Truro...and maybe a great white.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art icles/2007/08/10/seal_death_is_blamed_on_a_great_w hite_shark/ |
tess
Member
Post Number: 89
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 8:48 pm: |
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Geesh Paul, how did that make you feel?
I guess it is as an worm is to a jay, or a sparrow to a hawk... but so much more extreme due to shear size. |
tess
Member
Post Number: 90
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 6:23 pm: |
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Very sad…
I have a lovable little calico cat named Lucy. I got her when I had the farm for we were riddled with mice. Life changed dramatically when I moved us all to a small subdivision in the country last summer. We have had a lot to get used to.
What I have learned is that suburban wildlife is different than rural wild life. They are far more vulnerable to the wiles of my feline huntress. I am ridiculously sensitive, especially for someone who has taken pigs and lambs to the abattoir (a job I only did once and hired out thereafter). I have “harden” over the years in some ways, but not in others.
I kept kitty indoors all through nesting season this summer. I only started to let her out again this week. I did not expect a mother Robin to be teaching her baby to fly mid-August.
I was in the process of cleaning out the dogs’ water bowls when I heard a screech. I looked up in time to see Lucy in mid air with a struggling mass of feathers in her claws. I saw the mother Robin dive down into the mess and fly back out again. Lucy landed and mother landed in front of her screeching. I took the deck steps two at a time and threw the half empty bucket at Lucy with all my strength. She dropped baby and ran. I picked up the little mound of warmth and saw the blood oozing from a wound above her wing. Maybe it was superficial, I thought hopefully. I held her gently and gazed into the little face that peered back at me, mouth open, eyes blinked twice, and then baby died.
Mother was three feet away in the cedar tree calling and calling and calling. I put the baby on the ground and went and caught Lucy. She is now locked in the basement. I don’t know how I will love her again. I am so distraught. Mother Robin is still calling as I sit here writing --- so many different sounds filling the backyard --- I feel so much anguish.
My grief is overwhelming and seems “too much” for the situation … but god knows it is real all the same.
What is wildness --- Is this wildness --- a domesticated cat, a suburban Robin, a human bound together in the moment of death.
I just had to put this out there, somewhere.
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paul_hammersten
Member
Post Number: 281
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 6:25 pm: |
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Tess
For me there is a feeling of ' aliveness ' when in a wilderness that is in a state of pure wildness - where there are predators and man is not necessarily the top of a food chain.
It was quite something, and not something to laugh about as my literary mentor Ernest Hemingway would have said, to see where the Great White took one and only one 100lb bite out of the seal.
It is kind of like the movie JAWS here in Chatham. The officials are not saying openly what some of use know for sure. There was no mention of this attack in today's paper.
My wetsuit is all rinsed out and hanging dry.
I'm good to go.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm 1.static.flickr.com/73/154686140_bd4a0a69c0.jpg&im grefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/djdurutti/154 686140/&h=368&w=500&sz=80&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=v2Xn r4k10R8D4M:&tbnh=96&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhe ad%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bmeadow%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl %3Den%26sa%3DG
Paul |
tess
Member
Post Number: 91
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 6:38 pm: |
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Paul, so *nice* to hear from you. Was this a response to my post or a coincidental post at roughly the same time?
Sigh --- I thought when I originally posted that the size made what happened to the Seal seem extreme --- but Paul, I am feeling extreme over a Robin.
Is it just that I am a dumb human?
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tess
Member
Post Number: 92
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 7:43 am: |
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"For me there is a feeling of ' aliveness ' when in a wilderness that is in a state of pure wildness - where there are predators and man is not necessarily the top of a food chain."
Paul, I read your post above and this quote in particular got me thinking...especially when you write "a wilderness that is in a state of pure wildness" ...
I am wondering if you also think it possible to be in a state of pure wildness in a place that is not condsidered by paddlers' standards, wilderness?
I have many thoughts on this but will leave them for now to hear what you or anyone else out there might think.
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paul_hammersten
Member
Post Number: 282
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 8:57 pm: |
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Coincidental post
The Great White finally made the front page of our local newspaper.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article ?AID=/20070815/NEWS/708150325
Best
Paul |
Off-topic 
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