DAILY PHOTO: Makalidurga Cliffside
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Category Archives: outdoors
DAILY PHOTO: Makalidurga
I’ve Never Been Lost in the Woods [Sonnet]
I've never been lost in the woods, though I've been lost so many times. I've been lost in my neighborhood, and I've been lost within my mind. You say the trees look all the same. I say that's some speciesist shit. No. I don't know the trees by name, but that doesn't matter a whit. I've never been lost in the woods: lost means wishing to be elsewhere. Lost is all about "woulds" and "coulds." But I'm not lost if I don't care: don't care I don't know this exact spot, 'cause I know precisely where I'm not!
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Autumn Afternoon [Haiku]
autumn afternoon. the sun penetrates deeply, feeding the grass
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BOOK REVIEW: How to Read the Wilderness by the Nature Study Guild
How to Read the Wilderness: An Illustrated Guide to the Natural Wonders of North America by Nature Study GuildMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Release Date: November 22, 2022
This illustrated guide is designed to help readers learn some of the most prolific trees, plants, animals, birds, coastal life forms, and night sky constellations of North America. For plant [and in some cases animal] identification, the book uses a handy flowchart method that asks questions, sending the reader to an appropriate marker depending upon the answer. For wildlife identification, it uses descriptions of not only the animal, but skeletal remains, scat, and tracks. It also gives alternate names and asterisms for constellations.
The pros of this book include: 1.) it focuses on the most common elements and doesn’t get bogged down trying to be all-inclusive; 2.) it uses a flow charts, diagrams, and drawings successfully to do much of the heavy lifting.
The downsides of the book are: 1.) it seems be much more Western US-centric, and often treats everything East of the Rockies as a single zone (not to mention minimal discussion of Canada or Mexico – so maybe it should be thought of more as a US guide;) 2.) in trying to be text-minimal, it occasionally states things in a way that lacks clarity.
If you want to get a basic understanding of the elements of nature for the United States, this book is worth investigating. It’s young reader friendly, but not exclusively so.
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Yellow Shadow
The fallen leaves
of a sheltered tree
form a shadow
made of yellow,
a pointillist shadow
painted yellow,
‘til the wind blows
angled and low
to send that shadow
on its way -
or ‘til the leaves
turn brown and crisp…
whichever comes first.
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Blue, the Happy Color [Lyric Poem]
The sun is out after
days of gray,
and no fog or cloud stands
in my way
of seeing skies of blue.
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One River [Haiku]
foggy Fall morning:
one bank is clear, one hazy —
both of one river
