Comments on: For Those Lost To Us In These Last Many Days

By: ordinarysparrow

ordinarysparrow — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:52:58 +0000

beautiful Dr. E. . . so many times i have seen storms bring down the vulnerable baby birds to the hard ground, i cry. . .for years the young fledglings without full feathers have been the link that opened the heart to the “little people”. . .ones i carry on my back and in the heart from Africa and Mexico that will never be known by the greater world for the songs they once sung, but poverty brought disease and death. . .I have known some powerful Saints in the world but never have i know a being that emitted as much love as Chuey a little orphan from Mexico that had the most crooked little body with frequent seizures. . .every second of his too short life was a transmission of love and he died because there was not money or priority for his needed seizure medication. . .i know Chuey is still soaring. . .and i am still with tears. . .

i love you Dr. E. for seeing the little birds. . .thanks for writing of them. . .with and without feathers. . .

By: archangel

archangel — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:48:01 +0000

and ghost, thank you so much for yours about your sacred menagerie.

and Doriancito, that they lived.... that.

and JWest, that you see. So good.

And for readers, this storypoem is about people who have left early in the past many days, and the little raptor I foind on the road was the entry point for sayng some words about death come too soon. Read again and see for yourself. Think of any of our soldiers who have passed, our musicians, little children left in the heat of the car in parking lots, children shot as they waited for the bus, our knowing of those innocents from other nations who have been killed, those who were trying to soar on the rooftops of Tehran to be free... all wanted to soar

and the little raptor too

just my humble two cents.

dr.e

By: Ghostdreams

Ghostdreams — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:10:12 +0000

In reading your poem Doc...
I remembered last summer letting my two woofys out in the backyard.
A few minutes later, I heard my two woofers speaking loudly, in the "wild dialect" of their youth, the one rarely spoken now, these 10 years later.
Then I heard the agony ..Screaming.
I rushed to my backyard thinking that someone in the alley, some woman, had been beaten horribly (from the sound of it)..
Her scream carried over the bushes and trees and through the walls, all the way into the quiet of my hidden hermitage.
And it didn't ebb off.. No, it became louder and louder...As my boots pounded, running through the yard ...
And there, at the very edge of my yard I found my "Screamer" looking down in sheer terror and misery ...
The mother squirrel was up on a branch looking over her dead child killed by my woofs.
I wept and begged her forgiveness, all the while she, the Mother, screaming in mourning.
My mother's people call it "keening."
She was mourning. I knew what I was witness to, and I also knew my part in it ...
Afterwards, I spent months going through online sites, viewing information and science and local reports on what we know of the Bushytail tribes who live out here in Lincoln, trying to figure out what occurrence had transpired that such a small baby Bushy could have fallen into my yard..
Too many humans and not enough trees with adequate housing for these bushytails lead them to make insecure leaf nexts and whereas, usually this is adequate, with two large, lively predators living underneath her "home" ..If one of her children makes a mistake in their newly learned climbing skills, the end is a foregone conclusion.
Many times there is not enough food as well and this will lead the very young into a very unsafe yard.
The push back of human habitation on our Bushytails led to this terrible day last summer.
That sacred screaming voice of a mother mourning her dead infant stayed with me all through the winter into spring and carried itself message even into my dreamworld, turning such dreams into dark, tragic nightmares...Until the day I built that mother a "Den" and mounted it up on a tree outside my backyard where my woofys cannot access it, then, put up a food feeder for little bushytails and for pregnant bushytails, not far from where I mounted the Mothers new home.
Now I spend my mornings preparing breakfast for numerous "peoples." Kibble and meat for woofys, corn and raisins for Bushytailed peoples, and wildbird seed to help the two pairs of nesting Cardinals I have in the front of my yard. I was going to extend my efforts for a few other types of wildlife but I found it unnecessary due to what I observed not long after being to feed the bushytails and bird folks... I witnessed a most amazing thing happening over at the Bushytail food stand.
As the Bushytail eats, she eats the "meat" inside the corn and discards the husk of the dried corn (making many, many blackbirds very happy) but ..also ..
One very early morning, I peeked out and saw, fully, the Bushytail, pulling the dried corn off of the cob and then leaning down and giving some of it (she had not eaten it at all) to a very pregnant rabbit!
At first I thought I was hallucinating ...But it's happened so many times now that I have realized the truth of it ...
That bunny was pregnant and the new neighbors up front had mowed down her daffodils and other such things that she can eat. Due to this, initially she was getting very thin. I was actually beginning to worried for her unborn young...
Apparently, I wasn't the only one watching because about the time I noticed it, the Bushytail began "sharing" her food with her "fellow." I have actually seen the Bushytail running all the way down the tree and put corn right at the feet of the rabbit, apparently to insure that the pregnant rabbit gets her fill.
I point to this as one of my many proofs that the masters instruction regarding "love your neighbor as you love yourself" was heard by all nations, not only the two leggeds but others...
Either that or those "Teachings" come intact already in some of our neighboring species, eh?

Thank you for such a beautiful poem Doc!
Ghosty

By: D. E.Rodriguez

D. E.Rodriguez — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:33:21 +0000

Wow! Beautiful, dr e.

Especially since, just a few days ago, for days we worried about the survival of four little baby birds, whose mother had made a nest in a planter on our back porch…they all made it, as far as we know

Thank you!

By: JSpencer

JSpencer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:32:27 +0000

Dr E. I see this drama unfold almost every season, but have never seen it described so wonderfully. Thank-you. ~ Joe