The Nature of Things

Perhaps the most famous poem about the month of June actually comes as an excerpt from a longer poem, The Vision of Sir Launfal by American poet James Russell Lowell. The poem is worth reading in its entirety but here is that most famous and often quoted part.   f rom The Vision of Sir Launfal by  James Russell  Lowell And what is so rare as a day in June?      Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,      And over it softly her warm ear lays: Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might,      An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light,      Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen      Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, ...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : King Rail photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. *~*~*~* A coalition of influential officials in Arizona and Utah is urging the current administration in Washington to roll back Obama-era environmental protections that ban new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon . The Grand Canyon, like all public lands, is in danger from an administration that does not value them.  *~*~*~* We know that members of the corvid family are very smart birds and now researchers from Sweden and Austria have determined that ravens are able to remember people who have tricked them for as long as two months after the incident. *~*~*~* Whitebark pines are a coniferous tree of the high country. They are going extinct because of a combination of factors; however, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not listed the species for protection under the Endangered Species Act, not because they don't recognize that the tree is endangered b...

The moonflowers are blooming. They seem to be a little late this year, or maybe I just planted them a little later. This member of the Ipomoea family, to which sweet potatoes and morning glories also belong, has the scientific name of Ipomoea alba but is commonly called moonflower for the very simple reason that it blooms while the moon shines. The beautiful and delicately scented flowers open in the early evening as the sun sets and they stay open through the night, attracting moths and other nighttime pollinators. Typically, the blooms will stay open through the early morning, but then they close up and that's the end of that flower. There are usually several buds on the vines so that when one flower drops, another is ready to open up. Meantime, as the moonflowers are closing under the light of the sun, their companion plants, the morning glories, are beginning to bloom. These blooms brighten mornings in the garden but generally poop out under the heat of the afternoon sun. And...

Harry Bosch has already retired from the LAPD once, but he came back when they offered a "deferred retirement" program in order to staff up the department. Harry signed on for another five years. Now he is in his 60s and is nearing the end of that five year assignment. He has just about a year to go and he's anxious to solve as many cases as he can during the time he has left, because, as we who have followed him through the years know, solving cases is his life and his calling. How will he fill his time when this last year is finally up? Harry has a new partner for his final year. She is Lucia Soto, a young detective still in her 20s but one who has shown some grit during her short tenure with LAPD. In the previous year, she was involved in a gangland shootout in which her partner and some of the gang members were killed. She survived and became known within the department as Lucky Lucy. Bosch is still working in the Open-Unsolved Unit, dealing mostly with long-dead vict...

James Whitcomb Riley, American poet of the late 19th and early 20th century, wrote several poems about the month of June. One intuits that it must have been his favorite month.  This one is simply called " June " and it lauds the month as the "Peerless Goddess of the Year." Anyone who has experienced a perfect June day might agree. June by James Whitcomb Riley Queenly month of indolent repose! I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom I nestle like a drowsy child and doze The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom Before thy listless feet. The lily blows A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade; And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear, Thy harvest-armies gather on parade; While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear, A voice calls out of alien lands of shade:-- All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year! 

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Double-crested Cormorant resting on post. Photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. *~*~*~* The long expected shoe has dropped. The current president has announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change. Thus, our country joins the illustrious ranks of pariah nations (Syria and Nicaragua) that refuse to cooperate with the rest of the world in trying to save the planet from the effects of human-caused climate change. And, actually, I believe Nicaragua failed to sign the accord because they thought it wasn't tough enough; so, essentially, it is us and Syria.  *~*~*~* A group of twenty-two Republican senators had given political cover to the president in his decision by urging him to withdraw from the Accord. Those twenty-two had received more than ten million dollars from oil, gas, and coal companies in the last three election cycles. You don't suppose there could p...

Throughout much of Donna Tartt's 2002 book, The Little Friend , I kept wondering, where is she going with this? Is this a murder mystery? A coming of age tale? A childhood adventure a la Scout/Jem/Dill of To Kill a Mockingbird ? And if it is, where and who is their Boo Radley? In the end, it seemed to me that it was all of those things and none of them. In truth, the writer didn't really care so much about the death of nine-year-old Robin Cleve Dufresnes and how his body came to be hanging from a tree in the family's yard in the river town of Alexandria, Mississippi. The mystery of the death and who was responsible were never explained, but, by focusing on that, Tartt was really exploring relationships, how the death affected those left behind, and the way of life of those people. We visit Alexandria twelve years after the death. Harriet Dufresnes, the youngest member of the family, was just a baby when her brother died. Now she is twelve years old and obsessed with findin...