Thursday, June 1, 2017

Cape May 2017



I'm here by myself this year. Although the two weeks allotted to us to have this house start a week later than last year, the other sisters can't come until next week.  And the numbers are dwindling; more and more of them can't  do the steps.

Only child that I am, I have never minded a few days alone.  I am immersed in several disparate things:   preparing my panel talk on Stevie Smith's poem "Pretty,"  binge-watching the Netflix video "The Keepers,"  walking all over town, sleeping, and , of course, birding.

Yesterday I saw a female Canada Warbler foraging in the hedges at the State Park's Nature Trail.
I couldn't even begin to photograph her, but here is a photo by someone else:


I'm not sure if I've ever seen one in real life before. If I have, it has not been for a very long time.


The rain and fog have finally left, and here is the view yesterday:

 
 
I took the photo below of the bare tree that I call my "Merlin Tree"  Last October while I was just standing still on the trail below, a Merlin flew in, landed on one of those bare branches, and lingered.
It felt like a visitation. 
 
 
Stevie Smith's poems have also reminded me of a modernist Emily Dickinson, which then reminded me of one of Dickinson's poem that I set to music back when I was a sophomore in college. I can still hear it in my mind:
 
 
I DIED for beauty, but was scarce 
Adjusted in the tomb, 
When one who died for truth was lain 
In an adjoining room. 
  
He questioned softly why I failed?         5
“For beauty,” I replied. 
“And I for truth,—the two are one; 
We brethren are,” he said. 
  
And so, as kinsmen met a night, 
We talked between the rooms,         10
Until the moss had reached our lips, 
And covered up our names.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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