Supermoon Eclipse and Beyond

I enter time on this page.

What kind of time? Steven Hawkings’ or Walt Whitman’s? The goose’s or the loon’s? Are we counting the nanoseconds of the autumnal equinox or an average human lifespan? Is this the tempus of fugit fame?

Maybe. We’re all exclaiming, Where did summer go?! To which I add: !!!!!

***

Brockport Etude by Waning Gibbous Moon

Crickets, katydids

the maracas of August

leopard frogs on vibes

a little live night music

from wild old fairy’s woodland

***

So, readers, I’ve been in absentia to so many of you. If you’re a Facebook Friend you know this was the summer of Taos (two weeks), an emergency adventure at Christus St. Vincent’s Hospital in Santa Fe (one week), a Canadian getaway (one week; theatre + cottage), physical therapy (12 weeks and counting— great results for Roger)…and so on.  And, if you’re on my listserv, you know I had a book come out in May, Bunchberries, More Canada Poems (see below). Poetry readings, walks, dinners with friends, topped off by our housewarming party (46 wonderful guests) on September 13.  The only timely news is that our house renovations are complete for the season (gutters winter-ready).  And: we migrate to Florida, departing October 19, arriving at the condo on Halloween/Samhain after several visits with dear friends along the way.

***

Brockport Autumnal Nocturne

Now I speak to you

of leopard frog’s skritch-skritch-skritch,

one last long samba

before mud time as cold fronts

whisk south out of Canada.

                        for Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick

***

It’s been a nippy one today. Coat weather, furnace running. We’re wusses.

Today?  Is it today already? No, actually, it’s night, a windy night without frogs, and I obtain the answer to my opening questions: it’s been poet’s time all along. 

For further reading:

·         My thanks, deepest thanks, once again to Michael Czarnecki at FootHills Publishing for publishing the sequel to Godwit: Poems of Canada: Bunchberries, More Canada Poems. Signed copies are $18 (postage paid) or you can order direct from FootHills at  http://foothillspublishing.com/2015/id94.htm .

·         Keep your eyes on http://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.com/ . This is a fabulous new online poetry journal. I think you’ll enjoy hanging out at the Tavern.  My thanks again to editor Russell Streuer who will be publishing two more of my shorter poems this month. You can go directly to one of the earlier poems at http://theplumtreetavern.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-08-16T03:28:00-07:00&max-results=12&start=12&by-date=false .

·         Perhaps the most unusual publication event (and it was an event!) was when Big Bridge editor Michael Rothenberg published a review of my Lithic Scatter and Other Poems in the latest edition.  What was unusual is that my beloved – deceased – friend Beau Cutts wrote it, the last thing he wrote, and now, posthumously, it’s been published. See: http://bigbridge.org/BB18/reviews/Beau_Cutts.html# .

·         I also would like to gassho for editor Carl Sharpe who put me in the spotlight in his VerseWrights journal. http://www.versewrights.com/karla-linn-merrifield.html .

·         I invite you to visit two web sites: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/422008414/airie-wild-billboards/posts/1347894 + and http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2015/9/24/rewilding-miami-kickstarter/ . I am exceedingly proud to have my photograph of the Everglades River of Grass help the citizens and tourists of Miami understand the rare, magnificent world of the Glades, which is just down the road a piece.  The work I did there as Artist-in-Residence continues to do good work.  That the photo will be enlarged to 48: and wrapped around a building in downtown Miami knocks my socks off.

The first photo is of a Canadian tree frog I encountered while visiting friends Judy and Fergy Ferguson at their cottage in the Kawarthas, Ontario, in August.  My second photograph is of the Charles E. Burchfield painting "Haunted Twilight," which was hanging at an exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Center in Buffalo. (I've been in love with Burchfield's work since I was sweet 16. Well, maybe not sweet.)