March 24th, 2008

Poetry Posts

Walking through my neighborhood, I came across a wooden post near the sidewalk with a small case at its top. Inside the box frame, there was a poem called “Bird Watching,” available to anyone who might be walking by. I was impressed with the work, especially a part that asked what the point is of bird watching:

What is the point
of spending precious time
and hard-earned dollars
to wander the globe, only to learn
that someone has gobbled up
the nesting ground,
or filled the marsh,
or paved the meadow,
or poisoned the pond,
or clear-cut the forest,
or built a boundary wall
at the river’s edge?

The answer starts at the middle of the poem:

The point is to know we can follow
the tune of the bird of our childhood,
find the common among the common
and to know the rare will still be there.

…And finishes with the stanza:

The point is
…to identify what you find
in the spotting scope,
even when your naked eye
didn’t know it was there;
…to turn a camera toward it all;
…to show our children
and our children’s children;
…to let them hear it,
…to let them feel it,

That is the point!

The poem had no attribution, but the date at the bottom was just a few weeks earlier. I couldn’t resist turning my own camera to the post to record what I had discovered, then continued on my way. On the next corner, I was surprised to find another post holding another poem near the sidewalk. Inside the box was a photocopy of “Hug-O-War” from none other than Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. It made me think that these two neighbors had created a tangible version of a blog, for people who aren’t glued to computers all day. I made me hope that this trend in landscaping would continue for many blocks to come, turning the front yards in my neighborhood into outdoor salons and art galleries.

- Rick

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Personal Reflection, Environmental Change, Positive Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.