Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

I regret to report that I've always been something of a pick-and-choose liberal: aware and supportive of liberal causes almost across the board, but really interested in just a few. And while I've sometimes been a member of the Sierra Club and contributed to wildlife preservation in other ways, environmental issues are one of those which I haven't spent much effort reading about, let alone proselytizing for.

So it's interesting that in a single day I'd get hit with a concidental convergence of bits of information at least peripherally on the subject.

First, today is the birthday, in 1879, of poet Wallace Stevens. He's the one who worked for an insurance company, composing poems in his head as he walked to work in Hartford, Connecticut, coming out with his first published collection in 1923. It was pretty much ignored, and as a result he didn't get around to publishing another for many years. But in that first book, Harmonium, appeared a good number of poems on which his future reputation would be based. Here's one:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Also today, I received an email from one of my sisters. (Happy birthday, Cin!) She works at a public elementary school back in New Jersey; sometime within the last few days, she received an email from a science teacher at the local high school. She was writing me to share his message, which I reproduce below (unattributed, because I haven't yet received permission to reproduce it -- but it's hard to imagine he'll deny it). The links, I've added, and I've edited the text slightly to correct minor typos.

I had an experience today that I thought I should share.

I have been a part of the Shorebird monitoring program with NJ Audubon (some of our [local high school] students are involved as well) since July. So this morning was one of the days when I sacrifice sleep for a five mile walk on the beach looking for shorebirds. Today was a bit strange -- I only counted about 150 by the time I got to the point of North Brigantine. (We have counted a few thousand in the past.)

When I arrived at the point I found out where all the birds had gone. It was quite a spectacular sight. On the bay side a marsh hawk was chasing down a group of plovers. On the beach side hundreds of sanderlings dutifully hurried down to breaking waves and back again as they searched for inverts.

Anyway, hunkered down in a large group was a mixed flock and, sure enough there were some red knots in the mix (red knots are of critical conservation concern, a highly imperiled species).

While trying to count them, in a mixed flock, the hord took flight on a # of occassions and swirled out over the bay, turned to flash their underbellies to the sun and then put back down further up or down the beach.

How frustrating. At one point I sat low on the sand, hoping not to be part of the flushing stimulus, and the flock of 200 or so moved by so close I could hear them cut the air -- an awesome eco-expereince!

Eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to get an accurate count and as I turned to walk back south down the beach I frustratingly muttered to myself that the day, and maybe my participation in the program, was futile.

Something caught my eye as I made way across the wide sandy point. There on the ground was an injured red knot. Both wings broken, bleeding from what must have been talon punctures on its back, it was dying.

I stood between the bird and the northwest wind to allow it to breath without inhaling sand. Our eyes met -- its soulful black eyes stared through me. I guess it suspected I would eat it. I'd have to take a # as the gulls were already lined up waiting for me to leave.

This juvenile, only days ago, was on the arctic tundra gearing up for a flight that was pre-programmed. With nothing more than a hopeful belly full of invertebrates, this 3 month old bird, with luck, would wind up down in Tierra del Fuego in a couple weeks, re-united perhaps with its parents that had left weeks before.

Not for this bird. I picked it up, probably more out of guilt and definitely only delaying the inevitable as it was dying in my hands. I placed it carefully in the shelter of some beach grass.

As I walked away, I thought this was a turning point. I would quit teaching at year's end, go get my PhD and dedicate my life to shorebird conservation.

Interestingly as I planned it out in my mind, I transitioned to how I would share this with my students and family upon my return.

I grounded myself by the time I got to my car -- I would remain an educator.

For those of you who ever doubt that what you do makes a difference to your students... know that if you truly mean for your work to make a difference, it will.

Finally, one of the daily e-newsletters I subscribe to included today this poem by Emily Dickinson:

130

These are the days when Birds come back—
A very few—a Bird or two—
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old—old sophistries of June—
A blue and gold mistake

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee—
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear—
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze—
Permit a child to join

Thy sacred emblems to partake—
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

Maybe this is a sign from somewhere that it's time to pay more attention to the state of the earth?