Migrations

Migrations

Slick swift silver lake trout streak

upstream

Myriad monarchs

migrate

Warblers weave

in willows

veed geese gather

And gabble

a thousand strong.

              --Barbara Spring

Living Waters

            The north woods ring—the waters gather dripping from the tops of pines, running, running, running over ancient rocks.  The veerys trill up and down the scales, the warblers chime their notes through still bare twigs and the water runs, it runs down to Lake Superior swirling downstream, plunging over waterfalls just freed from ice curtains.  Curious deer come to drink from the pool below lifting their heads, standing motionless to sense the air.  Is it bear?  Wolf? Lynx?

            Sun dapples down through bare forest trees—sun streams, the ground steams, wet leaves tilt insisting on light, thrust new spikes.  Water flows through mobile root hairs, roots, stems, vaporizes into air.

Wild geese weave the wind, skid along black marsh water among tangles of cat tail.  Further downstream waves curl onto a rock shore polishing stones to oval and the small stones roll chinking and chunking.  They assume their flat round shapes over years of grinding, finding their ease in the wave rhythms, rolling rolling, rolling.  While caps bubble foam and the jade water is a dancing goddess in the middle distance between shore and horizon.

Children arrive to pick up fossils of ancient coral and to find stones to skip on a quiet day.  They chase sea gulls and try to become airborne by leaping and spreading their arms.  Cormorants and sooty terns rise and cleave the air.  The red cheeked kids leap in the early spring breezes, their knuckles chapped.  What do they care?

The bones of whales and sailors roll in the currents—some finding their way out to sea, some becoming, becoming, becoming a diatom’s shining, becoming the bones of an emerald shiner, becoming limestone shale in the loving exchange between the living and the living.  The islands of Lake Superior bear greenstones and jewel like snakes.  Sturgeon and trout spawn leaving pearls and coral in the crevices of rocks.  A moose stands chin deep in and island lake.  The islands of Lake Superior are quiet, remote and cold, bereft of copper, littered with bones.

Curled underground, water drawn up through squeaky pumps splashes into enamel buckets—water clear and cold and tasting of iron.  The iron flows through the veins of the moose and in the red cheeked children.

Loons quiver their greetings and as twilight falls, bullfrogs groan their love songs—they bellow all night long.  I lay awake listening to the water lapping the night and its creatures.

     

                                                                   --Barbara Spring

The Wilderness Within

Basic Instincts

Goslings follow the leader—

waddling after an imprint.

Veed geese fly home

the arctic tern,

the hummingbird,

and bright eyed warblers

fly to their tropical havens.

Lake trout swirl at river mouths

then race upstream.

American eels return from the sea

to freshwater streams.

Undersea

lobsters march in single file—

they know exactly where

they are going.

And we humans also know

where we are going

God’s green imprint is

upon our hearts.

                           --Barbara Spring

excerpted from my book The Wilderness Within

This book is widely available at Amazon.com, bn.com and many bookstores.

Why Do Birds Sing at Daybreak?

Why Do Birds Sing at Daybreak?

Robins with their marmalade voices

Caucuses of crows

And mourning doves loving the morning sun—

Humming birds never humble in spite

of their size chirp and hum as they fly.

Warblers warble and catbirds crumble

All the songs they ever heard together

Sweet crumbs of song

tumble through rose colored skies.

Then sleepy at evening a robin sings

Its sweet bedtime song.

But most of all

Birds sing at sunrise?

Why?

--Barbara Spring

Warbler Migrations around the Great Lakes

This is a good time of the year to look for warblers.  It's easy to see them since the trees in Michigan have not unfurled their leaves.

I love to hear the silvery songs of warblers in the air.  It's a sure sign of spring.

Once when I was on a small fishing boat on Lake Michigan, several migrating warblers landed on our boat. Fog caused them to lose their bearings and so they were grateful for the hospitality of our boat.  They rested there until the sun came out again and then they were off.

The Great Lakes are on the migration routes of birds.  Bird watching is a favorite thing to do on and around the Great Lakes.










Water color by Barbara Spring

Returning Home

Salmon leaping the dam at Ludington, MI

Basic Instincts

Goslings follow the leader—
waddling after an imprint.


Veed geese fly home
the arctic tern,
the hummingbird,
and bright eyed warblers
fly to their tropical havens.
Lake trout swirl at river mouths
then race upstream.
American eels return from the sea
to freshwater streams.


Undersea
lobsters march in single file—
they know exactly where


they are going.
And we humans also know
where we are going


God’s green imprint is
upon our hearts. 
               
 --Barbara Spring

Excerpted from my book: Sophia's Lost and Found: Poems of Above and Below