The Elegance of Clouds

Clouds photographed from my backyard.

This issue’s photos, poems, and drawings are by Ray Zimmerman.

The Elegance of Clouds

Men shot egrets for plumes that adorned ladies’ hats.
Resplendent in the sun they graced Easter mornings.

Gauzy like a bridal veil, elegant as freshly fallen snow, 
egrets put on their best clothes for courtship.
They are fleecy white clouds, that dot the marsh.

Lotus blossoms abound here and give way to seed pods.  
The spent pods bow to the earth. 
Each resembles a showerhead.

Where a field of white flowers had waved above the mud 
Amnicola Marsh became a creek between two wide mud flats.

Twenty-nine great egrets and three Great Blue Herons
lined the shore, waiting for fish or frogs.
When that neck and beak struck, there was no arguing. 
Snake-like they claimed their predatory nature.

The errant juvenile Wood Stork, spotted one summer 
abandoned the marsh, returned from whence it had come. 
Soon the egrets, herons, and others departed as well. 
The stream vanished in the heat. Only the mud remained.
 

Birdhouse photographed at Greenway Farm, Chattanooga.

Lichen

In the smoky gold of mountain mist 
the mellow autumn sun illuminates 
hickories gone to gold, 
the blue and gold of asters. 

Water percolates to surrounding layers, 
but the lichens grow on rock, 
desiccate in dry weather.
They appear to be dead. 
They wait for rain.

Like resurrection ferns, 
they seem to come back to life. 
Feeling no shame, they binge on water.

They regain fleshy texture, 
but survive the nibbling deer, 
and the hot dry summer.

The rocks appear to be forever, 
But the weather breaks down rocks.
Acids from lichens break them up.
Lichens are survivors.

Don’t be a rock 
if you want to change the world.
Be like lichen. 
Be a survivor.

Lichen photographed at Greenway Farm.

October Dandelion

She has not gone to seed 
and sent her clones to ride the wind, 
though all her sisters have finished 
the annual cycle of flower and seed. 

Yellow flowered weed, edible green, 
and source of wine, she rests among acorns. 
They wait to send forth roots 
or feed squirrels and their kin.

The density of the acorn crop foretells 
The number of bear cubs born next spring. 
Somewhere in the Smokies, 
a mother bear is gestating.

Buttonbush at Amnicola Marsh.

Pluto’s Demotion

Who has heard of such a thing 
as a Trans-Neptunian object?
Planet or dwarf planet, 
Pluto is as popular as ever. 

Pluto joins the ranks of Eris,
Ceres, Makemake, and Haumea, 
each a dwarf planet, 
smaller than the earth’s moon.

Orbiting, always orbiting, 
Pluto’s moon Charon tags along.
The night sky is a dark as the river Styx 
for this boatman to the underworld.

Charon was once Pluto’s only moon, 
but astronomers have found four more.
Those pesky moons just multiply.

Thanks to Walnut Street Publishing, my forthcoming book will launch on November 1. Walnut Street Publishing. I also have storytelling events forthcoming at Audubon Acres on August 3, September 20, and October 19. Watch my Substack publication and the website of the Chattanooga Audubon Society.

On August 1, I will present a generative poetry workshop for the Write and Chat group sponsored by the Chattanooga Public Library. They meet at Adelle’s Craperie on Main Street (Chattanooga) from noon until 1:30 PM.

If you want to write a poem and just can’t get started, here is a warm-up exercise. I will start the engine. https://journaltherapy.bcom/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/The-Trouble-with-Poetry1.pdf.

If you want to start drawing or keep a Nature Journal, please view this video by John Muir Laws. I never thought I could draw, but now I draw regularly.

Eight Spotted Forester Moth drawn from a photo I took on my deck.