Month: March 2006

A Sunny Weekend

Perhaps my little robin friend was a charm for Spring as the weather took a decided turn for the better this weekend, even though some rain is back in the forecast for next week.

We took off Saturday’s to return to Port Townsend. I’d been told that was one of the best places to find Loons. If it is, they were definitely holding a picnic on another part of the beach, because we didn’t see anything that looked like a loon.

Surprisingly, we actually saw fewer birds than we saw when we did here in late fall. Still, it was sunny, and it’s hard to go wrong walking along the beach in the sunshine, birds or no birds.

Instead of finding new ducks, we had to settle for observing new shorebirds, a species I have little luck identifying. We encountered a number of them on the first beach we visited when we startled these guys

as we nearly stepped on them as we walked along the beach. Though far from positive, I think the small birds were Black Turnstones, perhaps named because when they’re foraging among the rocks they’re nearly the same color as the rocks. You can only see the white underside when they move into the water.

In Port Townsend I saw my first Brants, which were busy defending their territory from other Brants that tried to land nearby.

Strangely, they seemed to have no problem sharing their little stretch of beach with these much smaller Sanderlings, who at first glance looked and sounded a lot like the Turnstones we saw earlier.

Stamen

I’ve always had a certain fondness for microscopes. An inexpensive microscope was one of my favorite toys when I was ten or eleven. I told Leslie that if I were as rich as Bill Gates, I would have a houseful of electron microscopes.

Since I’m not Bill, I had to settle for a rather expensive Canon close-up lens for my D20 which has the ability to magnify from 1 to 5 times. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed with my new toy when I took it out to play last week. What I didn’t realize was just how close you had to get to the subject in order to magnify it. Nor did I fully realize just how shallow the depth of field was.

I suspect that if I’d realized the limitations before I bought the lens, I wouldn’t have bought it. Now that I have it, I’ll just have to spend a considerable amount of time learning to use it for I’m far too cheap to let it sit around collecting dust.

I took a virtual roll of film on a very windy day last week and was quite disappointed with the results, ending up with a single image I felt at all satisfied with, the stamen of a flower taken at 2X magnification:

What I did learn, to even a greater extent than I did when birding, was the need to stand still and wait. You don’t chase insects, you wait for them to move in front of your camera, and then you move very slowly so as not to chase them away. In other words, you need to make them think that you’re part of the scenery if you’re going to get close enough to get a good picture.

Spring Harbinger?

Our recent spring-like weather has been blown away by cool temperatures, high winds, and driving rain mixed with snow flurries, belying recent sightings of American robins, usually a sure sign Spring has sprung.

Here’s hoping this bold little fellow knows something I don’t, because I’m ready to be out walking and hiking, taking pictures of daffodils and azaleas, not staring out the window watching snow flakes swirl through the air while working at my computer, even if it does give me time to manipulate photographs taken in warmer times.

Rexroth’s â€?”The Advantages of Learningâ€?

As much as I appreciate Rexroth’s erotic poetry, I might enjoy the ironic poems even more, particularly when the two meet as in the following examples taken from volumes from 1944 and 1949. Hopefully, they suggest a natural progression in his life as he aged.

I nearly chose the first one as my favorite poem in the early section but appreciated it even more once I read the later poem:

THE ADVANTAGES OF LEARNING

I am a man with no ambitions
And few friends, wholly incapable
Of making a living, growing no
Younger, fugitive from some just doom.
Lonely, ill-clothed, what does it matter?
At midnight I make myself a jug
Of hot white wine and cardamon seeds.
In a torn grey robe and old beret,
I sit in the cold writing poems,
Drawing nudes on the crooked margins,
Copulating with sixteen year old
Nymphomaniacs of my imagination.

After reading this, one might wonder if there really are any advantages to learning. Personally, I’d rather be in bed with someone I love than writing poetry in the cold and drawing nudes in the margin. Still, it’s nice to know that when all fails we can always use our imagination, or web porn sites, to sustain us when we’re alone and worried about our fate.

It’s comforting, though, to know that Rexroth eventually found something more comforting than sixteen year old nymphomaniacs:

FURTHER ADVANTAGES OF LEARNING

One day in the Library,
Puzzled and distracted,
Leafing through a dull book,
I came on a picture
Of the vase containing
Buddha’s relics. A chill
Passed over me. I was
Haunted by the touch of
A calm I cannot know,
The opening into that
Busy place of a better world.

Now I know I was justified in responding to students’ complaints about how dull books were, with â€?”I don’t think it’s the book that’s dull.â€? If a dull book can produce enlightenment like this, imagine what effect a good book might have.

I also found it interesting that Rexroth managed to touch on two of the main mantras of the Beats in these two poems. No wonder Gary Snyder offered a tribute to Rexroth in his poetry.