Growing Pains

Growing Pains

I can feel the world growing

I can feel the moon moving

Slowly away

I can hear the earth singing

In birdsong and stretch marked epochs

I can see the sky changing (I don’t need to see the newest scientific graph)

The clouds just don’t look the same

I can taste water and know

Mercury dreams swim in fits

Everyday I lose hope and regain compassion

Think we are doomed and then again see a glimmer and hope we shall save

This extension of God manifested that enlivens our world

That is our world

There’s a world of difference between dominion and domination

I can’t see the ocean for the phytoplankton filled drops of sunlight conversion

I can’t see the trees for the forest they look like giant

Churning organic hospitals

I mean life-support systems

Why isn’t ecosystem value a part of civics?

And I’m watching us pull out the wires and plugs

I hear the silly words of a cautious mother saying

‘wait, you might need that piece…’

under the chatter of children called Progress tossing whatever isn’t pretty aside

we are making our own invention and instructions are optional

history books like possibilities, not recycled intuition

I believe in free will

As much as fate

I believe hard work is my favorite spice

And understanding is the spice of life

Everyone should put their hands in the dirt

And rip produce from the ground and stick it straight in their mouth

I feel us becoming ever so digital like mental engineering

You look so much better under moonlight than in pixels

I hear voices of clarity cluttered into waves of messages and likes

Life has the type of beauty that moves

Be still child, be still

Your itchy feet will subside, we have medicine for that

Dreams and delusions of creativity, we can help with that too

Soon you’ll be just like the rest

Soon we’ll teach the leftover savage right out of you

Your longings will pass

Soon you will see

Everything is exactly as it should be

Yes, this is the road you have been walking to

Are you ready to grow up?

For the sake of something fleeting

I hope not.

Dreaming tree take two

I've been thinking about dreaming trees as of late, and decided to write something about them.


Each moment born from thoughts dropped like pebbles in a pond.

One day a bird ate a piece of fruit
And with that meal the bird ingested many things
Like sunlight turned into sugar
Vitamin and color
And perhaps the most powerful of all
The bird ingested a seed
A hard package of potential
A temporal passenger
 With a wishful ticket of tomorrow
To an undisclosed location
A lifelong destination, if it was one of the lucky ones

The bird flew with vigor
Call it a boost
A sugar rush
Perhaps even enjoyment
Of a sweet aftertaste on the tongue

Lofting upon a branch
Where it watched ants march in search
Of apple cores and crumbs
The seed was passed
Splatting upon the ground
With a creamy surrounding
Sure enough to make a lip curl in disgust
And a soil microbe smile in an opportunistic rush
Of fine dining

Time passes and change which endureth forever
Flows

Windstorm of seemingly angry fervor
Shoves over those weak and hollow
Snapping limbs and speckling eyes with dust
Or is it tough love just brushing up
Little invisible cyclones in corners only revealed by wrappers and leaves
A little pushy until things eventually settle
And creaky trunks rock like slowing tunes
Sunshine greets new ground and feet
When trees fall
water gets redistributed differently
and sometimes a patient seed with just what it needs
reaches up through thirsty dirt to kiss the sky
and then dig in

These infants
Saplings suckling sunlight
From time to time become a dreaming tree
That towers over a domain
And pulls not only wildlife but people
To some magnetic cohesion of grace and shade
Centurion providers
The dreaming tree becomes
A part of our life
It becomes a marker on our paths and maps of our story
The dreaming tree speaks
In profound abundance and atavistic simplicity
We thank the dreaming tree
We all have one somewhere in our childhood or future
We thank the dreaming tree It tells stories of family, love, and growth
They let us dream of something more
We thank the dreaming tree
Let us remember to also thank the bird.

Never mind them Woods (a poem for the Stadium Woods debate)

Info about the current debate over Stadium Woods adjacent to Lane Stadium on Virginia Tech campus and a proposed indoor sports facility can be found @ Save Stadium Woods.




The gist of this issue is the proposed construction of a sports facility and the potential for it to be constructed by removing a chunk of rare old woods next to Lane stadium. I think/hope the Stadium Woods will be preserved because it should be, but especially after the amount of attention and support it has garnered and the feasibility of building at an alternative site. But like they say, you never know, and you sure can't count your chickens before they hatch.

This is a satirical conversation between a group of people on the subject of Stadium Woods, the new athletics facility, and the decision making process.

Never mind them Woods

"No one is opposed to the facility and athletics makes a strong case for its need. However, most are opposed to placing it in rare, 300-year-old Stadium Woods." ~ a wise man

The Virginia Tech Master Plan says Stadium Woods is part of a
no-build zone, an
“Environmental and Cultural Greenway”
But football is different, right?
I mean we can bend the rules this once
It would be the first time, right Weaver?
We just need to pass the pigskin
in January and more importantly,
flaunt this facility to could be recruits
This could really make or break us

The quintessential question is
Must it be in this one spot?
No where else will do
Never mind cultural landmarks for future generations
Never mind alternative sites
We're keeping up with the Joneses
1 minute vs. 3 minutes of walking
equals less work
Never mind how we can understand this adds up
But not how other community values do too

Never mind some come here for other
reasons besides sports
Never mind many enjoy both sports and the forests
Never mind 5,700 signatures (and counting)
Never mind resolutions from
the Faculty Senate of Virginia Tech
the Arboretum Committee
the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Ecological Society of America
Support from the ROTC
Support from countless residents, children, mothers, grandfathers
Support from those who think a land-grant institution entails a land ethic
We're reaching out for more than tendrils of history

Never mind world class professors
with local funds of knowledge
Never mind accessibility
Never mind a commitment to environmental sustainability and stewardship
We are the masters of the universe
and we can pick and choose these things
We are wise, but thinking holistically is
more for ecosystems than expansion

Never mind the painfully thick irony
of this debate amidst Tree Campus USA recognition
Are we apart from nature or a part of nature?

Never mind them woods
there's plenty outside of town
Are we really arguing over a bunch of trees?
Never mind trees that were saplings before
our 1st U.S. President
Never mind 80 types of migrating birds
I mean really, birds
I want to see that 11-step button hook route perfected
what's a warbler ever done for me
they can find another pit stop

Never mind living classrooms
I hear there's an app for that
this
is
the face of progress

A living orange and maroon seasonal zeal of wonderment
Never mind old growth
We'll mitigate that with a few
new trees that are only 300
years younger
same species so no difference right?

"You take your hat off and give them
the respect they deserve."
No, we respect green of another kind
currency and turf
not hard-to-quantify value
of carbon sink and cleaning the air
Who cares about stormwater management, I thought
we were talking about football

Is this about impervious surfaces or impervious ears?
We can have world class forests and sports
Never mind the false dichotomy of tree huggers and football

Is smart growth an oxymoron?
Of course not, it's just not always
practical
Never mind integrated land-use management
we can teach it
but doing it, is quite different

Never mind extra costs to clean up Stroubles Creek, just a little stream that birthed this town

At least we can all agree
We are inventing the future
one way or another.

A Feather to Fly

With the return of spring and life afresh, I have come to realization the blog has collected cobwebs. Time to share some more poetry and photography with the digital world. To start things off, one of my favorite parts of spring, besides the flowers and verdancy returning and life all aflutter, is the birds. And that ageless wonder and wish that we could fly.

A Feather to Fly

I remember finding a feather in a field
looking at the color, the quill, the shape
looking about for a culprit
trying to fly by holding a hand over the naked spot
wondering if it would be embarrassed
I rubbed it against the skin of my cheek
and grinned
thinking about soaring
I went home and read about birds
and that was the first time that tool of flight
became a book marker holding my place

it turned into a scavenger hunt
and slowly I learned more and more about birds
and feathers
and how they fall out and are replaced
by the constant mending hands of time
how fingernails and feathers are both keratin
yet only one can defy gravity
I wished I believed in reincarnation
so I could be a bird one day

but the news said birds again fell from the sky
this new years
and blunt force trama still kills
so maybe its safer on the ground

maybe I just wish I could sing like the fluid flute of a thrush
or take off on a wing

I still pick up feathers when I see them
and I have many books to put them in
where they let my mind soar
and somehow still continue
to give flight

in a way my wish came true
and in a way it and I flew
where neither could before.





(northern flicker feather & weeping cherry flowers)

Do you really think we came from the insides of stars?

~ Migration of thought, it shall not return void. As seeds are scattered so will the roots spread and grow in fruition. Ripples of influence as our interactions without fail have no choice but to impact one another. We are responsive mirrors.


I watched stars pour out her mouth
Celestial bodies squirming and dancing
Taking form tickling my ears and
Running across my neurons
I could feel them tugging and sliding
Giggling as they went

I watched stars pour out her mouth
The birth of idea metamorphosis
As thought jauntily put its fingers in the sky
And pulled itself through invisible corridor
Peaking out its new body as action
Like a child resurfacing from a river
But more so like one being born
Surfacing for the first time
From some ethereal special place

I shouldn’t use the word spontaneous
Because the way you move sounds too smooth
Albeit unplanned
Organic and real
Like seasonal zeal of longing perennial bloom

This garden of thought you spoke of
Turned into the playground we saunter through
Wrapped up in the vines of verdant growth
Wine spilled out your mouth
I am drunk over you

Terra firma and water molded and clasped hands
Churning, spinning wondrously
A web of golden tendrils too thin to perceive
Barely feeling their residue of charge as we walk through
Dissipation of limbic language
Our words melt in verdant accord
This dream is too real not to be magical

My mirror neurons feel something strange as you speak
Because I watch stars pour out your mouth
Celestial bodies squirming and dancing
Taking form tickling my ears and
Running across my neurons
I can feel them tugging and sliding
Giggling as they go

And I felt the change wash over me
I felt the range of clarity pour forth in swirls
And suddenly I knew it was the same when I spoke
Vaporous flame of effervescent smoke
We’re starting wildfires of the mind
Under the hope they rekindle
Serontinous yolk
We are becoming twined
Forever the twain shall meet
Inside this tornado of growth
For we’re always dreaming
But we finally awoke

We’re always dreaming, but we finally awoke.

Photo of the Day

Ohh, I've been slacking with the blog. Hoping to catch up a little bit. For now, a springtime photo of a red eft and morel taken at Fairy Stone State Park, Va.

seeing reflections (fractal miming)

we race into the woods
like mirrors
its not about the speed of light
though we do feel rather infinite
we just want to see
what we left behind
and how we look now
it might sound strange
these childish games
reiterated action
like shimmers of indigo
but we built our treehouse into the sky
so what do you expect
we are rising, rising
not quite frolicking
just moving at a pace that makes us grin
and the funny thing is
we race into the woods
like mirrors
because we enjoy the blemishes
and irregular flowing curves
yes, we smell the honey coming soon
kaleidoscopic branches and aching bud
ready to breathe leaves once more again
this light is so awful pleasant
filtered through canopy dreams
following fluttering liquid thrush song
we smile because we always knew
fortunate enough to remember
I drink from spring kissing refreshing meshing view
we move about the woods
as mirrors
seeing you in this light is not purely uplifting
more like exhuming reposed placidity.