An Eagle Calls Unseen

On the other shore, opposite to us sitting here,

coffee-laden, staving off sleep and staring out, unseeing,

we hear his cry, sharp and short, calling out, unseen,

echoing in the morning air still and undisturbed;

alerted thus, we scan the treetops, searching,

our watchful eyes vigilant and magnified, focusing

for a glimpse of white revealed against the stark blue

of a summer’s morning, revealing him, his aery nest,

his rising up, wings stretched out and beating back

the morning, lifting up to soar above us sitting here,

earthbound, sluggish, dreaming and searching

for our own eagle’s flight to take us away,

our spirits lifted by a glimpse of white

disappearing in the silence of the lake broken

by his calling, sharp and short, a call echoing

in the morning air still and undisturbed.

Two "Old Hippie" poems

An Old Hippie Reflecting

In the 60s, we protested everything,

the “man,” the “establishment,” the order of things

that would beat us down, define for us

a way to be, a way to live, a freedom less free,

restricted, fighting to hold us in, align us,

even as we fought to break it down, beat it back,

the moral courage to say no, “Hell, no,

we won’t go,” but we did, going or leaving, dying,

dead, and sex and drugs and rock and roll,

Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, and Beatle-mania, “all you need

is love, love is all you need,” in this age of Aquarius

and Kent State’s violence, Black Panthers, placards waved,

tie-dye shirts, shaggy hair, and a war we feared,

sucking us in, spitting us out, broken, confused, unsure –

our search for wholeness lost in searching.

 

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An Old Hippie Still Reflecting

We dreamed big then, hallucinogenic,

bright color tripping, uninhibited daring

supporting what was right, humanity’s right

to Peace, to love, to the freedom to be

just what we were, young, the American Dream

brought to fruition, an end to war

and the police state gunning us down,

an ideal, perhaps, too big, unimaginable

except in youthful visions idyllic,

inexperienced, as we were told, “you

don’t really know,” but we did, we knew,

knew in the questions we asked, the answers we sought;

“How many roads MUST a man walk down?”

they asked us, Peter and Paul and Mary,

and we set off on our own road, walking,

to find out, to answer the questions of our time;

and I sit here now, resting on the back porch

of age and distance, still dreaming, and I ask myself

still, now as then, “… how many seas MUST the white dove sail?”

and the answer comes back, my friend, “the answer

is blowing in the wind,” a wind still blowing.

She arrived before we did ...

She arrived before we did this summer month of June

to open up the lake, arriving early

in the quiet of the uninhabited camp unopened,

before our smell, our noise, our humanness

drove her out, this fox, a vixen, hobbling,

one foreleg held gingerly, barely touching the earth before her;

driving in, gravel and slate crushed below us, crunching,

we saw her, dark and sleek and rusted-red,

her nose, pointed, black, and black-footed, lightly touching,

her tawny lightness disappearing soundlessly

into the underbrush beyond the well, our engine’s

pitch and whine, unnatural, out of place, human,

unsafe to her family of pups, four following her,

we discovered later, one morning rising early,

following her in the shadow’s cool darkness

surrounding this summer home we shared, we and them,

four reduced to three by summer’s peak,

lost, we hoped, imagined, wanted to believe, lost

to nature’s causes, nature’s ways, fearing, perhaps,

it was us, somehow, man’s intrusion, unnatural;

we saw her infrequently in summer’s months,

a quick glimpse of an evening’s dash across the yard,

a small catch, a mouse, a squirrel, lifeless in her mouth,

or an early morning stroll, pups behind, following, single file;

and then she was gone, going, as nature does, in season,

beyond our reach, unseen, unknowing,

out beyond our smell, our noise, our humanness,

our lives, though, blessed in her visitation,

her tawny lightness, a vixen, hobbling, lightly touching us,

disappearing soundlessly into the underbrush of our lives.

Winter’s Symphony

In the cold of wintertime here at the lake, at Hebron,

music reverberates in the chill air, crisp and clear,

strings and winds intoned in the breezes

blowing in from the lake, circulating among the trees

gone bare, soft percussion of dry leaves quaking,

or green still with boughs weighed down

by ice and snow, the tinkling shimmer of icicles barely heard;

and stirred by crescendo winds rising and falling to pianissimo,

our senses are awakened to nature’s perfect pitch softly struck amid

winter melodies orchestrated, the red bird calling,

echoed by nuthatch and chickadee, the changing harmonies

modulating into this season of music reverberating

in the chill air, crisp and clear, of wintertime at Hebron.