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Saturday, 25 December 2010

Born-Again Christmas


.

File:Charadrius ruficapillus.jpg

Red-Capped Plover (Charadrius ruficapillus), Orford, Tasmania
: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010




I wouldn't mind being born again as a Red-Capped Plover
If I were to be born again as a Fan-Tailed Cuckoo
or a Bassian Thrush
a Dusky Woodswallow
a Little Penguin
a Pink Robin

or a Superb Fairywren

I'd be on top of the world
If I were to be born again as a Bennett's Wallaby
I'd be over the moon

If I were to be born again as a Moon Jelly
a Bubble-Tip Anemone
a Venus Flytrap Anemone

or a Zebra-Striped Gorgonian Wrapper

life would begin again in a new and interesting way
for I would be beautiful
This old body of mine is on its last legs
anyway
If I could be born again
as a Red and White Christmas Tree Worm
I'd wish you a happy Christmas and be gone
into my feathery Christmas wreath in the deeps





File:Cacomantis flabelliformis.jpg

Fan-Tailed Cuckoo (Ccomantis flabelliformis), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Zoothera lunulata Bruny.jpg

Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Artamus cyanopterus Mortimer.jpg

A Dusky Woodswallow (Artamus cyanopterus) parent feeding chicks in a nest at Mortimer Bay, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Eudyptula minor family exiting burrow.jpg

Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor) family exiting burrow, Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Petroica rodinogaster.jpg

Pink Robin (Petroica rodogaster), Mount Field National Park, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Malurus cyaneus PM.jpg

Superb Fairywren (Malurus cyaneus), Male, Peter Murrell Reserve, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

File:Macropus rufogriseus rufogriseus Bruny.jpg

Bennett's Wallaby (Maacropus rufogriseus rufogriseus), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010I

File:Moon jelly - adult (rev2).jpg

Adult Moon Jelly (Aurelia aurita), Monterey Bay Aquarium: photo by Dante Alighieri, 2006

File:Entacmaea quadricolor (Bubble tip anemone).jpg

Bubble-Tip Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor): photo by Nick Hobgood, 2006

File:Actinoscyphia aurelia 1.jpg

Venus Flytrap Anemone (Actinoscyphia aurelia), Gulf of Mexico: photo by Aquapix and Expedition to the Deep Slope, 2007 (NOAA)

File:Colonial anemone zebra.jpg

Zebra-Striped Gorgonian Wrapper (Nemanthus annamensis), a type of colonial anemone: photo by Nick Hobgood, 2005

File:Spirobranchus giganteus (Red and white christmas tree worm).jpg

Red and White Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) photo by Nick Hobgood, 2005


This post dedicated to Jane and Johnny

7 comments:

Ed Baker said...

SOME 'eye" !Some Images! &
,dig it:

when I (ai, eye) re-awoke so to speak
in 1998 what "woke" me was a BIRD....
my next-door neighbor a Shrike:

http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/shrike/1.html


"She" perched high-up on top-most branch of
a dead oak-tree...

later I discovered ...

Musachi Miyamoto's sumi-e "Shrike"

(actually he did other "stuff" ...too)
snowing here now.... time to feed my Wild Birds...
& prep the dead chicken ready for The Celebration


the birds who live in my back yard roost in my eaves


ciaoo

Jane said...

Thank you Tom very, very much. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Jane

Julia said...

Such beautiful images, such beautiful thoughts, are brought to us from a beautiful man's soul (it may sound cheesy, but is my true feeling now)

Marcia said...

Merry Christmas, Tom. Thank you for a year of inspiring images and words. Marcia

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Dear Tom,

Very beautiful (words and pictures), as you are. Johnny is not here this morning to hear and see this (alas), but when he comes back it will be at the top our to do list.
Merry Christmas to you and A. ---

12.25

grey whiteness of clouds above shadowed
ridge, motion of green leaves on branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

everything as it is because
named, form in itself

geometrical, two dark trees
left edge, from point

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
whiteness of gull flapping toward point

TC said...

Many thanks, sweet people.

Runic bit here, as often, in Steve's poem:

everything as it is because
named, form in itself

(which echoes meditation, during construction of this post, upon possibility of intrinsic relation of name of creature to creature named; obviously all "our business," as creature knows not its name, nor cares less; and yet, and yet...)

Getting ready to rain, here.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Yes, the name and the thing named -- "things have names by nature"; "the name is to like the thing"; "names rightly given are the likenesses and images of the things which they name" (Plato, Cratylus). . . .