"Coloring the Conservation Conversation--One Word at a Time!"

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Winter


A winter morning in the South Carolina High Country
And  snow swirls in a saber sharp wind. 

The Piedmont  broken underneath the elevation sits  like a puzzle with missing pieces  beneath  us--shrouded in the shadows of a moody day. 

The modest peaks of granite and gneiss –Table Rock, Pinnacle, Caesar’s Head and White Sides-- lie partially nude in the winterscape-mounds of rock and soil bared to the dimming  gray of a snow-heavy sky. 

The shadows covering valley and ridge lie heavy like a cloudy quilt but with no warmth or comfort  to come.

Crevices carved by storm and trickle trace the path of creeks and rivers soon to be fed flake by icy flake

Armies of oaks and hickories stand bone bare – dormant and gray as the day--waiting on spring to release the life within

Ridges hold the green-pines twisting in the sudden storm while clouds  on a jetstream ply the parting blue above -- A raven—black as a pit and croakless too oared against the onslaught as vulture and redtail rode the same updrafts to advantage


 Then-sudden as lightning and almost as quick—a  feathered form slicing across the in between –traveling –peregrinating-
a falcon and then a pair—perched on rock to survey the same as me

No longer cold and warmed by the want of wild and feathered things
I welcomed winter—late though she may be




Friday, February 10, 2012


In Between 
The days when pen and paper do not meet
When the lettered keys grow cold
When inspiration flies away
Darting  between hum and drum
To avoid the ordinary
Like some fleet and furtive accipiter
I wonder when the mood will return-
A day a week or more?
When trees or birds or sky will inspire
 A line or two
A reflection of time or place

The in between days are empty pages
No hunts no pecks
Until  maybe
a vermillion flash through a wall of green
and a cardinal ‘s sweet  song
Full, rich and clear
Cheers the dreary day

or a sinking sun
mellow golden orb against an orange and purple sky
dying to be reborn against the next morn’s new one
sets the mood to feel and think and  write
of sights, sounds and scenes
until in-between
the doldrums sap the creative winds
and the sails fall flat
mind adrift until once more
the trades fill the canvas
and the in-between day
is just a memory