waterfall

Oh, how I failed you and I lament the change
that cannot now ever be undone.
Still now I call but it will not go answered
our time is past us
and I have taken the road away
I had wished you would follow
I am too far now
the dream fades
how I wanted to know you.

-Corby

All sorts of local laws and regulations have been tried and found wanting, and the costly lessons of our own experience, as well as that of every civilized nation, show conclusively that the fate of the remnant of our forests is in the hands of the federal government, and that if the remnant is to be saved at all, it must be saved quickly.
Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, -- chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man's life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees -- tens of centuries old -- that have been destroyed.

-John Muir

changing loon

fall sumac

Fall begins

The Burren

look over the landscape
at what once was
where trees towered the soil covered rocks
birds called flying between the boughs of leaves
that was our time once
before the towering trees fell
and the rocks now revealed
slowly wash away
but I will always go back
and stand where we once stood
dreaming of trees
and loving you.
-Corby

Galway Swan

sometimes some doors close
so that others can open
it is the way of goodbye
perhaps when I come around the corner
you will be there laughing
as my dear friend
I will believe in the best of the world

rainbow peacock butterfly

Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops,
Away above the chimney tops.
That's where you'll find me.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow,
Why then - oh, why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
Why, oh, why can't I?

From the Wizard of Oz

wren getting funky

what was that... you forgot dw!

Jackdaw

cheerful Irish Robin

A rook corby crossing the line...

the Corbyhawk is taking some time off- be well my dears....until we meet again

Angry snowy egret

because the Corbyhawk will be offline for a bit!

Migration

I miss him I really do
my muse
I had such fun dreaming, he is the best
and I hope to gain the rare prize
of earning his friendship and love
Here is to you-generator of poems, of paintings,
of laughter and steady reason in rough times
I am not here to take
just to be.

you give energy to what you believe to be
I have to remember that and try to be hopeful even though I feel that all hope is lost
you create what you believe to be
I have to create joy out of saddness
I have to go on even though I want to turn back

pup

And we're sad because we think we don't belong here
We're guilty 'cause we think we should be stars
Floating in a navy soup, we're sailing
There you are
There you are
He's so bright
And then he's gone

Don't mind me
I'm just sailing
On a sunrise
It's my favourite thing
And when are you
Going to realize
I don't blame you
I never have

From Universe by Sarah Slean

Black-Footed Albatross

And a good south wind sprung up behind ;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo !

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine ;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge Rime of the Ancient Mariner

albatross chicks are affected by the large amount of our plastic crap that ends up in the ocean, and I am going to see what I can do about limiting my plastic crap output. Read about it here

no return

Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,
Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.

-From Silence by D.H. Lawrence

yes, I have an underbite...

Eye of newt

"Eye of newt,
and toe of frog,
Wool of bat,
and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork,
and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,
--For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

Shakespeare's Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

Apparently the previous administration classified evidence of global warming and the shrinking sea ice near Alaska. Read it for yourself here

road-runner

In the metaphors we make of the creatures of the heavens and the deep, we often project our imagery, imbuing them with our own reflection. But the world is more than a coloring book of shapes for us to fill in. When we perceive metaphor in reality we enhance our understanding of ourselves, but when we install meanings instead of seeing reality, we miss all the true texture and inherent value, like a child doodling over a great painting.... We miss the expansive opportunity of knowing other creatures. When we see that, worlds open-and even the metaphors that find us become more interesting.

From Eye of the Albatross by Carl Safina

moon eye

Night of four moons
and a single tree
with a single shadow
and a single bird.

On my flesh I seek the
imprint of your lips.
The jet spray kisses the wind
without even touching it.

I bear the "No" you handed me
in the palm of my hand
like a wax lemon
nearly white

Night of four moons
and a single tree.
On the point of a needle
stands my love-whirling round!

-Dead at Daybreak by Federico Garcia Lorca

Whaaaat ???

Be, And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with your world. Use it for once.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XIII

lightness

There's a lightness in things. Only we people move forever burdened,
pressing ourselves onto everything, obsessed by weight.
How strange and devouring our ways must seem
to those for whom life is enough.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XIV

bird of paradise

The answer came to me. Wait as long as you need to. The waiting is as important as the doing; it's the time you spend training and the rest in between; it's painting the subject and the space in between; it's the reading and the thinking about what you've read; it's the written words, what is said, what is left unsaid, the space between the thoughts on the page, that makes the story, and it's the space between the notes, the intervals between fast and slow, that makes the music. It's the love of being together, the spacing, the tension of being apart, that brings you back together. Just wait, just to be patient, he will return.

-From the book Grayson by Lynne Cox

I miss him...
my owl man
my muse
I miss him
I love him in black
and I miss seeing him
saunter in smile in his eyes
an exclaimation of "well" on his lips
a man of all birds really
birds and flowers
painter
I miss him....

My god lives in the woods
the light in a bird's eye
my breath as I suck it in
swimming in the ice cold water
looking up to a clouded sky.
The pounding rhythm of my heart
as I run up a hill searching
for that bird that just flew over me.
Death is stillness
the end of movement
as the body chokingly ceases to be
no air, no blood
bones turn to soil
to trees ripping upward
challenging the sun.
I find it under my feet
walking on your back, your blood
filling me to my fingertips
all the marks in the world
cannot capture so ethereal a thing
as what you once were
like the bird shadow
that crosses my face
and leaves the page empty
of its song.

-By the Corbyhawk herself

corby eating watermelon

Crows play. Once thought to be reserved for people, play has been increasingly found in animals, especially long-lived social ones like crows.

In the Company of Crows and Ravens by: John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell

Hi, I am back.... and look a princely frog to start things off again...

I will be away and I am not sure if I will have internet access...
Be well and don't forget me...

-Corby

Hi :-)
Just want to all to know that the poems are a fiction, they are sometimes based on little observations but really they are not factual. Just as an FYI... so relax and enjoy but don't get too crazy....

air kisses
-Corby

Were you afraid I had the wrong idea?
she watched me cautiously
wondering what I might do
you seemed not to notice
it was strained
I sensed it as if I were intruding and not a guest
the cold glass sweated sticking on the coaster
the water eased my thick throat
how brutal this exchange
what game have I entered so unwittingly?
played out and I still even now
cannot escape my desire for you
Her casual rehearsal
as she listened in for clues
I felt her the entire time
listening to the notes we sang
the chords of the conversation underneath
what was she wanting to hear
would I confess?
Give away all messages of my meaning?
Instead I distractedly spoke
as you distractedly listened
keep me like a jewel
a topaz close to you
so close but in the pocket
not glittering facets in the light
I wanted to rise up
hold my head higher as she bent
and you next to me even then I could feel you
as I covered it deep my yellow reflection
how it surfaces as you walked up
all in black coincidence
beautiful and greeting me
you saw my true face
before it closed as she walked over
before I had to shield it
put in proper decorum
now days pass
hours, years, and I am forced to admit
this dream may be only for fools
but for you I work
my brush reaches out past the edges of iris petals
one last time
she cuts the lemons
yellow globes split on the white counter top
and I wonder at myself, what I am trying to slice
how here I come in and invited stay
and uninvited love
see you at your table
watching all my hopes falter
you reached out once to touch my back
but seeing her dropped your hand
as if I would break too fragile
but I carry this alone
her smile comes and goes
as you keep yourself from me
angry you leave in rush
lemon primroses edging a final salute
for the thousandth time I wanted to kiss you
so I looked away knowing you might find it on my face
saddened that I have become so dangerous
to warrent supervision
when not once have I ever given you reason to fear
the sun was not yet setting,
sitting on the cutting board
but my beloved it has for me
the cut was quick in her skilled hands
the last spring iris brought in
set in its place amongst your table
the painting sat leaning against the wall
the heron silently hunting.

by the Corby hawwwwkkkk...

Stranded

She waits and preens herself
by the riverside
rain washes her feathers
as she picks them clean
She waits
for those flown far past to tundra
a chorus of communion
she could not join
laying their eggs amongst the flowers
gold grasses, lichen
She waits
once more to greet their southward return
her moment will come as they land
gliding down like snowfall
white and black surround her
she cries out, joins the mass, disappears
and flies away from winter.

-By the Corbyhawk herself who cares for people who care for birds...

iris for him

I know I know stop it.
You know what? I still think he is just delicious. So what?
Would I sneak a piece of that? Yep
Am I bad for thinking that?
no I do not regret it
I will be good if I must
it is ok
it will all work out as it should
or not
oh but man can I dream-yum.

because of a dream

and I would quietly come through the door
smiling at you, looking up at those eyes
the depth of them, your nose hawking out
get closer some bit of courage and it is not you and me
not with all the excess but just a man and a woman
consumed with desire
maybe I would start there with your cheek
the faint brush of it under my lips, the edge of bristle
I'd have to touch you with my tongue find your mouth
lay your clothes around me as I find you
every inch
every moment
ah silly dreams that are not mine to dream
too bad I still want you

Hi all I will be out and about for the weekend. Check out these funky nests at Cornell here and enter your own picture!

I need this today...

and your pure mask of another sign.
The sea's childhood and your silence
where the crystals of wisdom shattered.
Your rigid ignorance where
my torso was circumscribed by fire.
What I gave you, Apollonian man, was the standard of love,
fits of tears with an estranged nightingale.

...traces and signs of what might be...
Your waist of restless sand
follows only trails that do not climb.
But in every corner I must look for your warm soul

From Your Childhood in Menton
By-Federico Garcia Lorca

the corby misses her sweet muse

thief

But as she broke off the flowers at the same moment the twelve brothers were changed into twelve crows, and flew off into the forest....

-The Twelve Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales

Very tired tonight-lots and lots of hiking-

this website is pretty funny, if you have that odd off-key humor that I have....here

I was not always polite, not always biddable. The monotony bored me. I despised the everlasting red tape, the sheep-like stupidity. What one did, all did, and because they always had done such and such it meant that they always must.

-Emily Carr

living on the edge

Nature is well adapted to our weakness as to our strength...We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! ...So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place at every instant.

...I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.

-Thoreau

memory

...I find you

Tamer of dark
butterflies!
I keep along the way.
After a thousand years are gone
you'll see me,
o my night love!

By the blue footpath,
tamer of dark
stars,
I'll make my way.
Until the universe
can fit inside
my heart.

[...]

-From Curve by Federico Garcia Lorca

hanging on to this fish

by the toenail

A Lament
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more -Oh, never more!

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more -Oh, never more!

The ocean is
the Lucifer of blue.
The sky fallen
for wanting to be light.

-from Ocean by Federico Garcia Lorca

sad sad sad sad sad sad
I don't want to lose him
I don't want to lose him
I have lost too much
I will send good thoughts


I will be offline for a bit away from technology

stare into my little beedy eye if you dare...

I have often been lost on the sea
with my ear full of fresh-cut flowers,
with my tongue full of agony and love.
Often I have been lost on the sea,

-from Ghazal of the Flight by Frederico Garcia Lorca

Arguably I fall off the boat, when I think oh yes and I can just let him go. Then reality sets in, the reality of tomorrow being my last day there. No more meetings...

shine your thang..

You know, I don't want to be filled with longing anymore. I cannot answer the question of what someone else is thinking unless I ask them. There is no mystery, no romantic code, you ask and you know. I was never brave enough to ask, hence I am never going to know. That sucks but I cannot sit and not live because of it. I love this person, I do without question but I do not know how they feel about me. I should remedy this, I should ask. Life is short and shadows are dark and long. I am tired of shadows.

Trumpeter

Earth

We walk on
an unsilvere
mirror,
a crystal surface
without clouds.
If lilies woud grow
backwards,
if all those roots
could see the stars
& the dead not close
their eyes,
we would become like swans.

Fredrico Garcia Lorca

Cat Bird

A confused king penguin dad here.

Heros for Sagebrush habitat, can the tide be turning read here.

dream dream dream dream
he is such a dream
lovely dancing eyes
I wish he knew how a moment
could make my day
I wish he knew it is him
I was brave and went to him
I will miss seeing him
even for those snatches of moments
a dream a sweet sweet beautiful dream

House Wren

The wren

The wren lay cold in my palm
I once believed my breath
Could make him live again
Fly-off –continue on his way
I stare at his empty eye
It dries out
Sinks away
Rotten bone
In a cape of feathers
Despite belief
Will not fill again
With air

By the Corbyhawk

some cute to tide you over...

yeah whas up wi' that

white-throated sparrow

I thought myself so much to the earliest leaf and the fist meadow orchis-so important that I should note the first zeezee of the titlark-- that I should pronounce it summer, because now the oaks were green; I must not miss a day nor an hour in the fields lest something should escape me.... But today I have to listen to the lark's song-not out of doors with him, but through the windowpane... They manage without me very well; they know their times and seasons-not only the civilized rooks, with their libraries of knowledge in their old nests of reference... They go on without me. Orchis flower and cowslip-I cannot number them all-I hear as it were, the patter of their feet-flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on, and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed the sward of the hill. Nature sets no value upon life, neither mine nor of the larks that sang years ago. The earth is all in all to me, but I am nothing to the earth: it is bitter to know this before you are dead. These delicious violets are sweet for themselves; they were not shaped and coloured and gifted with that exquisite proportion and adjustment of odour and hue for me. High up against the grey cloud I hear the lark through the window singing and each note falls into my heart like a knife.

-Richard Jeffries "Hours of Spring" -1886

Today would have been my dad's 73rd birthday. I miss him and wish I could see him again. I painted his portrait-

looking back

How shall I hold my soul that it may not Be touching yours?
How shall I lift it then
Above you to where other things are waiting?
Ah, gladly would I lodge it, all forgot,
With some lost thing the dark is isolating
On some remote and silent spot that, when
Your depths vibrate, is not itself vibrating.
You and me - all that lights upon us, though,
Brings us together like a fiddle-bow
Drawing one voice from two strings it glides along.
Across what instrument have we been spanned?
And what violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweetest song.

-Rainer Maria Rilke