You were always an owl
despite everything
When I needed you most
you flew away

So I do not reach
nor do I call
I walk on
through the silent forest
wondering if for a moment
you notice my absence
but perhaps you cannot see
through this darkness...

-By Corby

dream owl

Sorry! I got sick of the music every time I went to post!!

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

The arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

From Walt Whitman O'Captain my Captain

Long-tailed lift-off

I Am Learning To Abandon the World

By Linda Pastan

I am learning to abandon the world

before it can abandon me.

Already I have given up the moon

and snow, closing my shades

against the claims of white.

And the world has taken

my father, my friends.

I have given up melodic lines of hills,

moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.

And every night I give my body up

limb by limb, working upwards

across bone, towards the heart.

But morning comes with small

reprieves of coffee and birdsong.

A tree outside the window

which was simply shadow moments ago

takes back its branches twig

by leafy twig.

And as I take my body back

the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap

as if to make amends.

His river

The ice river filled his eyes
the last time he looked upon her
steady in passing
more endless then we will be
as his eyes teared
with her water that made him
rolled crystal down his cheek

Miss you so much dad :-(

When you lose one of the things most valuable to you, you realize what you have that remains with you. The entire world around you becomes so much more precious and you linger longer and hang on tighter.

Come to me
in some beautiful dream,
where once again you will swing me up
on your broad shoulders.
Time in the sunny days of memory,
where over the river we ride
I comforted in your steady care
my best captain
over every sort of water
sit by my side
dream of unknown fishes
and laugh with me
until sunset falls.

I love you and miss you dad, thank you.

Dying is a sad and slow process. It cannot be rushed although your heart may crave it, to ease the pain of a long goodbye. Then what do you say when the moments drag on? You have said it all and they can no longer say anything. They look, but can they see you? They hear you and move their faces but it is one-sided. All I want to do is ease his pain and let him go on, but he stays. He is waiting for something and we cannot know what. I am not really thinking or my heart would just split apart, I am not really feeling it all right now, just concentrating on the minutes, hours and bracing for that last breath.

I go now to sit a vigil at his side

Ice

Echo

By Daryl Hine

Echo that loved hid within a wood

Would to herself rehearse her weary woe:

O, she cried, and all the rest unsaid

Identical came back in sorry echo.

Echo for the fix that she was in

Invisible, distraught by mocking passion,

Passionate, ignored, as good as dumb,

Employed that O unchanged in repetition.

Shun love if you suspect that he shuns you,

Use with him no reproaches whatsoever.

Ever you knew, supposing him to know

No melody from which you might recover-

Cover your ears, dear Echo, do not hear.

Here is no supplication but your own,

Only your sighs return upon the air

Ere their music from the mouth be gone.

Dying is silence, perfect silence. It climbs up around us and hushes our voices, each day seems more precious. I realize how often I plan on tomorrow. Buy that sweater to wear next week, eat less today to look better tomorrow, I will do that later, not right now. How often I lie to myself thinking so easily of a future that may indeed not exist at all. I sit next to him and as I look at his face I know that I have to let him go. I want to cry but I do not. He is not rallying, he does not fight, he sits bent over encased in a silence. They speak in the other room as if he is not there, as if he is already gone. "What do you want?" I ask him. What to do you want with your last few todays? We have but moments, seconds, instants and I want to prove with this finality, how grateful I am that you were here for me. So I walk into the silence, greet the day, live the lie of tomorrow. His eyes search mine tears brim on their edges and I hear in his gaze the one thing I cannot give him, more time to live. If I could tear down the edges of the world for him I would.

Let him see one more spring
the snow melt and pushing crocus
when I was born his hands held me up
like a pair of weathered wings
he has never stopped in his care
Let him see one more summer sunset
sitting next to me on the rocks above the river
talk of nothing much and everything

-love yah dad
-Corby

Not everyone sucks I know that, I am just very upset and angry about something I cannot do anything about. So blogging may be sporadic because time is really quite of value these days.

Be well my dears, I am just mad at the dirt.

-Corby

F you today
f you and your lack of tomorrow sucks
f the world that I am here posting this
because PEOPLE SUCK
I am sad angry and sad sad sad
I will not be ok again ever

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Pslam of Life Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

hold me until I break
and keep this silence
do not move me into tomorrow
now here now
before my heart beats again
and I am swallowed in what will be
press me into you
cover my ears my eyes
wrap up my hands
no news no words
no useless benedictions of hope
let me live there
listening to your exhale
feel living warmth that words cover
before I shatter
and my sweetness is lost
that pure belief in the impossible
it bids me now in this grief
to lift my head and look
towards all the emptiness
for you

-kaw kaw kiyree by the Corbyhawk

Things I want to do:

Go fishing with my dad again
See the Johnny Rooks (Striated Caracara) at the Falkland Islands
See Antartica
Watch bald eagles in a talon grasping display
Make sure everyone I care about knows I care
Illustrate a bird guide
Illustrate a children's book
Have a solo show in NY City
Always have a sense of humor
Go to northern Alaska
See a polar bear
See a Northern Spotted Owl
Watch my nieces and nephews grow up
Get old and wrinkled
Make my greatest painting
kiss someone once
Hang Glide
See angel falls
canoe down the St. Lawrence River (the entire thing)
Become a full-time college prof
Go to the tropics to see the birds and plants
See scarlet ibis at sunset

just some ideas...

And now for the new year...frisky ducks