Tag Archives: great blue heron

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The Introverted Thinker in New York

The Introverted Thinker is eight. Her mother takes her out of school for a week to go to New York City.

They leave her sister and her father behind.

Her mother complains about the school paperwork. “Never let school get in the way of your children’s education,” she says. “That’s what my father says.”

The IT is not sure what all this means. But she is excited.

They go on an airplane. She gets to sit by the window. She can see the ground and it is squares like a quilt with hills. It is so beautiful! She is amazed, magic!

In New York City they go to the house of an old friend of her mother’s. The old friend is old and wears dresses to the ground and a lot of jewelry. The house is dark and there are many things in it. The IT is told that the things are antiques and she must not touch anything. She walks around carefully in the dark places, looking at all of the strange things while her mother talks to the old friend. They talk about the past and people that she does not know.

Her mother takes her to museums on some days. Some are art museums. The IT is already used to art museums because her mother is an artist. The museum is like an art gallery only much bigger and the ceilings are very high. A lot of the art is very big too.

One museum is different. Natural History, says her mother. There are dinosaur bones. The IT can’t touch them either but they are wonderful. Huge animals from the past that are not here any more! She loves it.

They fly home. First she has to thank the old friend with the house like a museum, only darker. Then they go to the plane. This time there are some clouds so the IT can’t see as much, but she still gets to see the quilt of the land.

She decides that she likes museums and she likes natural history. Especially dinosaurs.

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Feathers

This is the final poem in my Falling Angels Dream Poetry series.

Some people say there are

Angels among us

I have faith in birds
I search for a nest
Hummingbird nest
the size of a nut
tiny, lined with spiderwebs
I love the herons too
great blue heron
flying lands in a tree
above me
I look through my mechanical eye
zoom in click click
and there is another
at the tree top
two in a tree
I move around
and there – one drops down
one flies
I am not distracted
a nest
a six foot nest
blessed
I move away gently

I wander back by the tree
gently
in the morning
in the evening
not one
not two
two in this tree
two in that
one in another
as many as five in a tree
six foot wing spans
a rookery of winged beings

angels among us
and why would we think
they would look like us?

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Mundane Monday #207: change

For Mundane Monday #207 my prompt is change. Here is one of my beloved great blue herons in the winds of change.

Well, dear folks on WordPress, I have life things going on that are interfering with my blog.

This will be the last Mundane Monday post unless someone else would like to take over. Many thanks to the people who have contributed.

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Last weeks prompt was opening.

KL Allendorfer contributes with a musical opening.


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more blue

For Wordless Wednesday: I am not wordless today, but the herons are so stealthy!

Hiking with my daughter and friend B on the C and O canal, ah! Here is an east coast great blue heron. Standing very still across the canal, just the colors of the rocks and winter trees and leaves. I look for birds or I could have walked right by without seeing this one.

Great blue heron standing on one leg, with surrounding rocks of the same color.

I love the one legged stance. I will need to do a lot more Tai Chi before I can stand on one leg that comfortably. The heron only moved enough to keep an eye on me.

Great blue heron, standing on the shore of the C & O Canal on one leg, observing the photographer.
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stay or go?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: migration.

I took this on a beach walk with my aunt and uncle on Sunday. They were visiting from Virginia. They’ve flown back now.

This is taken with the zoom all the way out. I recognized the great blue heron, but in the first picture I can’t tell what the geese are. With a face in profile in this second photograph it’s clear that they are Canada geese.

The geese are migrating but the great blue heron stays and winters over. Most of our hummingbirds migrate, but the Anna’s can winter over. And I have been asked: stay or go? My landlord asks if I will renew my lease for my clinic in February.

I reply that I am waiting on the US Congress. My clinic is more than half medicare patients. 48% are over age 65. Congress is discussing paying a flat fee for medicare visits: about $43.00 dollars. At the moment I do not see how I could keep my small solo clinic open if that goes through. Stay or go? It is stressful. I want to stay. But I may have to migrate like the geese….

I think a frightening number of physicians would either migrate or stop taking medicare patients, opt out of medicare, if Congress passes this bill. The AAFP is fighting it. I contact Congress too, but I am tired of fighting for single payer, medicare for all. Patients spend more on their dogs’ health than their own. How can I do good care and feel valued for $43.00 per clinic visit?

I thought the thing most likely to close my clinic is the cost of my own health insurance. But Congress may close me down by dropping my payments from 48% of what I bill, to less than 25%. Yet they say they want good care for our country….

Message me if you contact Congress to say do not do this. And thank you so much if you do.

The proposal for medicare changes is 1472 pages. So I am supposed to find time to read that and comment on it in addition to taking care of my patients? What sort of insanity is this?

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tilt

I love the great blue herons on the tops of trees: they look so comfortable even when the top is leaning way way over… I am no where near as comfortable in a tree! And think of being the size of a great blue heron and landing on that tree! I have been watching them locally more and more. They look unlikely and peculiar to me landing in trees, but it’s me that is uncomfortable, not them. They trust the trees and land with confidence.