Loca and I walked through the park this morning and noticed along the way, the things we haven’t noticed, there are ducklings everywhere! I couldn’t count how many. The pelicans and cormorants are gone, but one slick black cormorant had spread his wings in the middle of the lagoon and was drying off. All along the banks, I noticed the yellow-crowned night herons, Plenty of them. I was smiling for the first time and happy Arlene was at peace as she hasn’t enjoyed the park in so long. <\/p>\n
A friend sent me a Mary Oliver poem in Arlene’s honor:<\/p>\n
Heron Rises from the Dark Summer Pond<\/p>\n
So heavy
\nis the long-necked, long bodied heron
\nalways it is a surprise
\nwhen her smoke-colored wings<\/p>\nopen
\nand she turns
\nfrom the thick water,
\nfrom the black sticks<\/p>\nof the summer pond,
\nand slowly
\nrises into the air
\nand is gone.<\/p>\nThen, not for the first or the last time,
\nI take the deep breeath
\nof happiness, and i think
\nhow unlikely it is<\/p>\nthat death is a hole in the ground,
\nhow improbable
\nthat ascension is not possible,
\nthough everything seems so inert, so nailed<\/p>\nback into itself–
\nthe muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
\nthe turtle,
\nthe fallen gate.<\/p>\nAnd especially it is wonderful
\nthat the summers are long
\nand the ponds so dark and so many,
\nand therefore it isn’t a miracle<\/p>\nbut the common thing,
\nthis decision,
\nthis trailing of the long legs in the water,
\nthis opening up of the heavy body<\/p>\ninto a new life: see how the sudden
\ngray-blue sheets of her wings
\nstrive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
\ntakes her in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loca and I walked through the park this morning and noticed along the way, the things we haven’t noticed, there are ducklings everywhere! I couldn’t count how many. The pelicans and cormorants are gone, but one slick black cormorant had spread his wings in the middle of the lagoon and was drying off. All along the banks, I noticed the yellow-crowned night herons, Plenty of them. I was smiling for the first time and happy… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1kHSD-renew","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}