Sunset at Chokoloskee, a small, sleepy "old Florida" island on the edge of the Western Everglades, 10,000 Islands area.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunshine on My Shoulders
Warm Florida greetings to all. It has been a busy time for this vagabond poet. Writing, of course, but also meandering bay and estuary by kayak and beach and forest on foot trails along the Atlantic coast, into the Keys, and now on the Gulf coast, where I'm making my way slowly northward as the days grow perceptibly longer.
One of the best days so far I spent alone on Cayo Costa, a small barrier isle on the Gulf coast accessible only by boat. I spent the day on the beach writing and bird watching, cloud watching with no one in sight despite the perfectly sunny, warm day. The solitude was refreshing...and inspirational. Hence:
In Order
It is not any memory
of the sea, but the eye—
the eye goes first.
So a sailor’s sailor,
one who has gone round the Horn,
will tell you: the eye goes first.
Where have gone my guiding stars?
Where my albatrosses?
In the footsteps of Darwin
go studious scholars of benthic depths,
of the great pelagic heave,
who report in scientific journals
the news on every shore:
how the eye goes first.
Where have gone my pristine waters?
Where my blue-footed booby?
And the ocean’s poets
from Antarctica to the Gulf of Alaska
as they stroll coast lines in their lines
espy the moon by ebb and neap,
and the next day, night’s dead on the beach.
We write that the eye goes first.
Where have gone my Neptune, my Poseidon?
Where my penguins and puffins?
Death surfs on crushing waves in our poetry;
first the going blind, then the fade of memory.
It is not any memory
of the sea, but the eye—
the eye goes first.
So a sailor’s sailor,
one who has gone round the Horn,
will tell you: the eye goes first.
Where have gone my guiding stars?
Where my albatrosses?
In the footsteps of Darwin
go studious scholars of benthic depths,
of the great pelagic heave,
who report in scientific journals
the news on every shore:
how the eye goes first.
Where have gone my pristine waters?
Where my blue-footed booby?
And the ocean’s poets
from Antarctica to the Gulf of Alaska
as they stroll coast lines in their lines
espy the moon by ebb and neap,
and the next day, night’s dead on the beach.
We write that the eye goes first.
Where have gone my Neptune, my Poseidon?
Where my penguins and puffins?
Death surfs on crushing waves in our poetry;
first the going blind, then the fade of memory.
***
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Antarctic Dreams
The Vagabond Poet has landed on terra firma at home after a 28-hour journey from Ushuaia, Argentina -- the southernmost city on the planet -- to our driveway.
I'm finding it impossible to describe to people what it was like. No superlative I've come across does the continent justice.
However, I've made one discovery: It's not the "White Continent" as it's so often called. Antarctica is the "Blue Continent" to me. Sky, water, ice combine in remarkable ways in myriad hues of blue. Ahhhh.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Greetings from below the Antarctic Circle! We crossed this line—660 33” 30’ south latitude—aboard the National Geographic Endeavour this morning at 8:30 and, as I write, are several degrees below it making passage to Marguerite Bay on the southern end of Adelaide Island off the Antarctic Peninsula.
It’s been a fantastic voyage so far…with humpback whales cavorting next to the ship in a quiet bay…crabeater and leopard seals hauled out on bergy bits…chinstrap as well as gentoo penguins waddling uphill from the shore or sliding downhill to it on their bellies…overhead a variety of petrels, terns, skuas and albatroses wheeling in the gray skies. In fact, I’ve counted 21 “bird firsts” so far in the expedition.
We’ve had our share of rough seas, winds (up to a full gale) and some snow, but the temperatures haven’t dropped much below freezing. And in the quieter waters of channels and straights, calmer waters and great masses of fantastically shaped blue icebergs drifting by.
I look at the sharp-ridged towering volcanic mountains sheathed in ice and at white caps torn off of wave crests as far as the eye can see and am reminded of Thoreau’s dictum: “We need the tonic of wildness.” In Antarctica on this journey I am getting the strongest dose of that elixir. The White Continent and its adjacent seas indeed belong to the penguins. Man may visit briefly, carefully, but in the end this is the kingdom of the gentoos and their ilk.
***
First Morning, Drake Passage
No reminder necessary, no other option:
Obey the sailors’ law: “One hand for the ship.”
I must get a grasp, hold fast to the Endeavour
to steady my wobbly landlubber’s legs.
I lurch along her decks, sidle corridors,
totter fore to aft above the heaving seas,
With an envy of cavorting albatrosses
and their various companion petrels,
I wish for wings with which to skim
these white caps, pray to relinquish
all my labored habits of terra firma
that I too may woo the watery churn
with unfettered spindrifted kisses.
As I bend at the knees, dip and lean
into ever steeper, steelier swells,
does this Southern Ocean recognize
my curtsies? Do waves witness how
I swoon? Will winds know when I let go?
It’s been a fantastic voyage so far…with humpback whales cavorting next to the ship in a quiet bay…crabeater and leopard seals hauled out on bergy bits…chinstrap as well as gentoo penguins waddling uphill from the shore or sliding downhill to it on their bellies…overhead a variety of petrels, terns, skuas and albatroses wheeling in the gray skies. In fact, I’ve counted 21 “bird firsts” so far in the expedition.
We’ve had our share of rough seas, winds (up to a full gale) and some snow, but the temperatures haven’t dropped much below freezing. And in the quieter waters of channels and straights, calmer waters and great masses of fantastically shaped blue icebergs drifting by.
I look at the sharp-ridged towering volcanic mountains sheathed in ice and at white caps torn off of wave crests as far as the eye can see and am reminded of Thoreau’s dictum: “We need the tonic of wildness.” In Antarctica on this journey I am getting the strongest dose of that elixir. The White Continent and its adjacent seas indeed belong to the penguins. Man may visit briefly, carefully, but in the end this is the kingdom of the gentoos and their ilk.
***
First Morning, Drake Passage
No reminder necessary, no other option:
Obey the sailors’ law: “One hand for the ship.”
I must get a grasp, hold fast to the Endeavour
to steady my wobbly landlubber’s legs.
I lurch along her decks, sidle corridors,
totter fore to aft above the heaving seas,
With an envy of cavorting albatrosses
and their various companion petrels,
I wish for wings with which to skim
these white caps, pray to relinquish
all my labored habits of terra firma
that I too may woo the watery churn
with unfettered spindrifted kisses.
As I bend at the knees, dip and lean
into ever steeper, steelier swells,
does this Southern Ocean recognize
my curtsies? Do waves witness how
I swoon? Will winds know when I let go?
Monday, October 1, 2007
Oh, Canada! Oh, a New Poetry Book!
Coastal Range
granite
spruce
mist
hawk
if I do not drown
in the snowmelt stream
I will become the mountain
granite
spruce
mist
hawk
if I do not drown
in the snowmelt stream
I will become the mountain
***
My newest book of poetry has just been released from FootHills Publishing -- Godwit: Poems of Canada! With lots of poems and a few photos I take readers on a journey across the vast stretches of Canada. From Newfoundland and Labrador to the shores of British Columbia with many stops along the way, you'll travel out of the fog, onto the prairies and into the mountains, meeting up with wildlife and fascinating people of yore and of today.
Considering the cost of airfare and gasoline these days as well as border crossing hassles, Godwit is a sane solution for those seeking to explore the great northern frontier. The book is available from FootHills Publishing at www.foothillspublishing.com. Cover prices is $18 US.
Worth the read, eh?
Monday, August 20, 2007
On Wings of Hope
My newest chapbook, Dawn of Migration, has arrived!
The chapbook, which is being issued in conjunction with my fist-ever one-woman photography exhibit as part of the 3rd annual RochesterInkPoetry in Fusion Festival in October, fuses 19 of my “best of” bird photographs with 18 poems about the Galapagos’ blue-footed booby, Florida’s roseate spoonbill, Canada’s white pelican, the ubiquitous great blue heron and more.
One critic, fine art photographer and author Laury A. Egan observed this about the Dawn of Migration collection: “In style, these poems are intensely feminine; in perspective, they are powered by the maternal, as if written by Mother Nature herself.”
I hope you'll want to take a closer look. No binoculars required!
The chapbook is available for $11.50 (including postage). Proceeds support RochesterInk, as will sales of the framed photographs (available November 1). To order the book or to find out more, write me at klmerrifield@yahoo.com
Kindly, from Kent, NY (aka Home),
Karla
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Northern Bound
The vagabond 
poet is aheadin' home...where, if all goes well, I will arrive on Wednesday, August 8, after eleven weeks of gallavanting. The penultimate adventure of this long journey to the Southwest and back took us along the Natchez Trace Parkway through Mississippi. Much to see along this lovely route that follows the old Indian-trail-cum-pioneer-pathway of the 1800s. Historic churches and moody cemetaries with worn tombstones and old trees draped with Spanish moss...ancient Indian burial mounds...creeks and delicate waterfalls...sites of now-defunct towns...and nature trails like the one that led through this cypress swamp one early morning.
One last stop along the way: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame/Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday. Then home, home at last.
Look for more postings this fall...beginning with a couple selections of photographs from my upcoming one-woman photography-poetry exhibit at High Falls Gallery in Rochester, NY. Dawn of Migration and Other Audubon Dreams is slated to open on October 3...with an accompanying chapbook of the 18 bird photos and poems in the show.
poet is aheadin' home...where, if all goes well, I will arrive on Wednesday, August 8, after eleven weeks of gallavanting. The penultimate adventure of this long journey to the Southwest and back took us along the Natchez Trace Parkway through Mississippi. Much to see along this lovely route that follows the old Indian-trail-cum-pioneer-pathway of the 1800s. Historic churches and moody cemetaries with worn tombstones and old trees draped with Spanish moss...ancient Indian burial mounds...creeks and delicate waterfalls...sites of now-defunct towns...and nature trails like the one that led through this cypress swamp one early morning. One last stop along the way: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame/Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday. Then home, home at last.
Look for more postings this fall...beginning with a couple selections of photographs from my upcoming one-woman photography-poetry exhibit at High Falls Gallery in Rochester, NY. Dawn of Migration and Other Audubon Dreams is slated to open on October 3...with an accompanying chapbook of the 18 bird photos and poems in the show.
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