One bloom, blindly sensed
More felt than seen, yet we breathe
Deep breaths, more keenly
It takes a squirrel to make me realize, most keenly, how clumsy and inadequate I am as a photographer. That is why you will see no photographs of Gerald here. Or George. They defy me. They exist, in my photo library, as blurs and snippets of taunting shadows. Fluffy tails whisking out of sight.
I can only show you where Gerald just was.
He was just here, eating this mushroom. If you look closely, you can see his teeth marks. That is all you get of Gerald.
But I can tell you that this episode sent me off on a frenzy of googling. For, you see, Gerald was very much drunk. Or at least that is how it seemed. He took a few bites of this mushroom (poisonous) and went cavorting off like a crazed jackrabbit.
Google knew exactly what I was frantically trying to find, and finished my sentence for me. ‘Can a squirrel eat…mushrooms?’…
It would seem I am not the only one who has wanted to save a squirrel from poisoning. And it turns out that, not only can squirrels eat poisonous mushrooms, they actually harvest them, and dry them for future consumption.
(I picture little clotheslines strung between branches, with thin slices of delicate Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca flapping in the breeze. Squirrel not in the picture, because of course, it has just scampered tantalizingly off-stage.)
I was actually quite concerned for his safety, as I watched ‘Gerald’ go careening up hills, rocks and trees, then come tumbling down again in a fluffy tangle of red tail and snowy white chest, and paws akimbo.
So…it turns out that squirrels, in addition to being elusive to capture adequately in photography, are also immune to mushroom toxins. They can get drunk on fermented apples, high on mushrooms, and happily survive both.
If they don’t break their necks.
This is also a good time to mention, no, you’re not hallucinating, I did change my blog around a bit. It is still a work in progress, so please let me know if there is anything you don’t like about it. Some people do spring cleaning in the season appropriate to the name…I get inspired to do my cleaning and rearranging in the fall. Thanks, as always, for visiting!
If Realize
were a perfume
it would be subtle
some might say dull
as though you could
enter or leave a room
and no one would
noticebut oh what fun
its sister scent
The Aha Moment
is having
all bursts of light
and sparkling
conception
you see her there
surrounded
by titillated
admirersCan we even glimpse
that other cousin
Epiphany?
all distant incense
and seizures
of other-worldly
Knowingness
quickly bored, recently
departedSuch comets leave
exhausting effluvium
and make one think
no, perhaps Realize
is good
sensible
analytical
even if rather
dullThen comes Wonder
to whisper in your ear
she leaves you breathless
with her strange perfume
no poor relation, this–
you follow her,
completely alive
unknowing but
now knowing
(Revelation)
“realize“
Welcome to the first day of Autumn! I was hoping someone would ask me to use the word ‘equinoctial’ in a sentence. But I managed, as I am always looking for a Curious Word.
There was no leap
no jump, and clearly
no Spring
on that day the sun began
its smooth glide
into equinoctial splendor
some local hawthorn berries
Autumn has caught us in our summer wear. –Philip Larkin, British poet (1922–86)