Ross' Geese (Chen rossii) on final landing approach near Burns, Oregon: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
and in the house the prayer on the Prophet
The sound of geese over the house
and in the house Allah loves you
The mountains are full of light and their
gigantic shadows are eloquent since they're
leaning against the sky and out into space with their
crags and outcrops
No sound can scale in a dimension commensurate with
the pure expanse of it
The sound of geese over the house
puts a dome of life above us and a
sea of life below us and a
world of life all around us
and a shaft of living Light inside us
..............................
Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore: The Sound of Geese Over the House, from The Sound of Geese Over the House: poems June 15 - November 4 2007, The Ecstatic Exchange, 2015
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii). Ross' Geese on final approach to a small pond near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon.: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross'
Geese (Chen rossii). Ross' Geese in great numbers pause their spring
migration near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon to
rest and feed in flooded agricultural fields and ponds. This group was
spooked in flight by a Golden Eagle soaring overhead: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii). Thousands of Ross' Geese were spooked in flight by a Golden Eagle soaring overhead near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon.: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii), Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon. A tiny white goose with black wingtips, the Ross' Goose is like a miniature version of the more abundant Snow Goose. It breeds in the central Arctic and winters in central California. During spring migration, Ross' Gese are abundant at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and flooded agricultural fields nearby.: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 15 April 2007
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii) and Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons) in great numbers pause their spring migration near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon to rest and feed in flooded agricultural fields and ponds. photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii) and Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons). During spring migration, both Ross' Geese (Chen rossii) and Greater White-fronted Geese are abundant at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon. photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii), Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon. A tiny white goose with black wingtips, the Ross' Goose is like a miniature version of the more abundant Snow Goose. The Ross' Goose breeds in the central Arctic and winters in central California. During spring migration, thousands of Ross' Geese transit Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and flooded agricultural fields nearby.: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 15 April 2007
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii). Ross' Geese in great numbers pause their spring migration near Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon to rest and feed in flooded agricultural fields and ponds. This group was spooked in flight by a golden eagle soaring overhead: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 20 May 2008
Ross' Geese (Chen rossii), Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon. A tiny white goose with black wingtips, the Ross' Goose is like a miniature version of the more abundant Snow Goose. The Ross' Goose breeds in the central Arctic and winters in central California. During spring migration, thousands of Ross' Geese transit Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and flooded agricultural fields nearby.: photo by Dan Dzurisin, 15 April 2007
The protest at Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon has attracted a range of visitors,
including a man dressed as a Declaration of Independence signer: photo by Julie Turkewitz/The New York Times, 14 January 2016
The protest at Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon has attracted a range of visitors,
including a man dressed as a Declaration of Independence signer: photo by Julie Turkewitz/The New York Times, 14 January 2016
Today the #bundymilitia made this road within the refuge. #oregonstandoff: image via Amanda Peacher @amandapeacher, 14 January 2016
5 comments:
It's not that the flintstone militiamen who have taken over the Refuge don't like wildlife mind you... in fact what's more fun than a moving target... in the right place at the right time...
Militia "lawyer" invites hunters to shoot coyotes on US Wildlife Refuge
Tom,
Beautiful photos (of the geese I mean) together with "the sound of geese over the house" and the sound of geese from the rain-replenished ponds across the Mesa here -- "a/ world of life all around us" . . .
Steve,
Thanks for the good words on this latest sodden, sopping morn (or is it afternoon? -- the long grey drip of the imaginal water-clock)... and about the bit you've quoted back, it's a good thing the kind and generous Abdal-Hayy gently but promptly called my attention to the mistake these bent and gnarly ancient digits had perpetrated in his poem of uplift and exaltation, making "world" into "word", for the first few minutes of its mayfly internet life.... in which, I guess, every instant counts, almost as much as it counted anyway.
My last few Bo-Town memories-worth-remembering come from the weeks preceding our departure, much of which time was passed in mute contemplation of the herons stopping by the then-new sewer ponds along Mesa Road --- don't know what goes on there now, but of course you would -- not the same herons certainly but perhaps their descendants...
A good thing the riches of the Pacific flyover are largely distributed seasonally, the White-necked Ibis and Sandhill Cranes and Sage Grouse and Ross' Geese don't normally reach the southeast Oregon range where the pathetic whacko gang has established its toxic nest at the Refuge until April/May -- when by the way Harney County gets to enjoy its one annual moneymaking attraction, a migratory bird festival that draws birders from all over and thus contributes a bit of custom to local smalltown businesses in Burns...
The faux cowboys up at the Malheur Occupation, I suppose, could be said to be contributing to the local economy, if you take out of the equation the 70-80 K per day it's costing town and county to put up with them, and then factor in the couple of bucks' worth of snacks purchased yesterday at Safeway by the patriots who pulled up in the commandeered government vehicles with the logos effaced, the new Murican way...
Alas however, the possible cash infusion from that transaction has to be discounted as minimal and the subsequent less-than-sensational parking-lot arrest admitted to be nothing so iconic as "our" comparable spectacular of millennial phantasmagoria, the upcoming nuclear weapons test er Globomundo Stuporbowl which is some ad pimps' idea of a "local" entertainment attraction over across the Bay, where Money buys Everything, tech firms and tourists matter more than the residents, and exotic wildlife comes in cages, at a pretty price.
When the peckerwood-patriot whackos up at Malheur discovered surveillance cameras mounted on a pole, instead of blaming the FBI in another fit of paranoid delusion, they might have tried using the cameras to see what's actually out there... and of course they've already got their own sniper scope weaponry up at the sentinel outpost in the Tower... chances are if the snacks hold out for a few more months, and they figure out which way to point the equipment, these pinhead vigilantes may be able to get a glimpse of any number of interesting live critters for the signers of the New Declaration of Independence ("All you have to be able to do is make an X") to blow to feathery and/or furry smithereens...
Tom,
Yes, herons and egrets still out there on the "sewer ponds" (strange that name, for one of the most pristine bits of open space in these parts, a path along the edge just a stone's throw from my back door (parts of it maybe underwater now?) next to which all manner of waterfowl (ducks, geese, egrets, herons) taking off and landing, standing around, doing whatever it is they do in that momentary "just passing through" . . . not to mention occasional sightings of night herons and kingfishers perched on the wire that still runs along part of the lagoon road (maybe left there just for such birds, otherwise going underground to the north and sound of that section) . . .
"pathetic wacko gang" . . . "faux cowboys" . . . "patriot-peckerwood wackos" . . . "pinhead vigilantes" . . ."'X'" - - - - -
Lovely poem..thanks for sharing it Tom. Reminded me of something Sibelius said (quoted in an Alex Ross article)..
'One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, that beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a gleaming, silver ribbon..That this should have happened to me, who have so long been the outsider..nothing in the whole world affects me-nothing in art, literature, or music-in the same way as do these swans and wild geese and cranes. Their voices and being.'
Post a Comment