The Ocean Boil

We had been at sea
For about two weeks
And were heading south
Approaching the equator
When I spotted something
Far off on the horizon.
I climbed up to the crows nest
To have a better look
And it appeared like
The entire ocean
Was turning white
And for whatever reason
It was coming in our direction.
By this time
Everyone was up on watch
And the whole ocean
Was beginning to boil.
It was a school
Of yellowtail tuna
That stretched
As far as the eye could see
In every direction.
They were big ones too,
Maybe forty pounds apiece.
A bunch of them
Played at the bow of the boat
For quite a while
And we could reach down
From the bow sprint
And touch their backs.
It almost seemed like
They were trying to
Jump into the boat
And all we needed to do
Was to figure out how
To give them a boost.
My aunt was great cook
When it came to fish,
And those fish
Looked like they would be
Mighty good to eat.
The only problem was
That the Diamonds insisted that
Their seven year old son
Should be the fisherman.
We had a little bit of tackle
And some make-shift bait
But their son
Only managed to
Sacrifice what little
Gear we had
To the Gods of the sea.
For most of a day
We passed through
That massive school of fish
Trying in vain
To find a way to land
One of them.
I suppose it was a proverbial
Fisherman’s dream.
It looked like there were
Enough there
To feed the whole country
For a year or more.
Apparently they were pursuing
A mass of flying fish
Because a few of those
Did manage to land
On our deck.

Blue Ice

The glacier is born high up
In the permanent snow field
Where ice and snow
Accumulate year after year,
Building up over time
To thousands of feet thick.
The immense weight
Of overlying snow
Compresses the snow pack,
Squeezing it out
Into frozen rivers
Which push out
Towards the sea.
Though the snow and ice
All start out white,
It’s color shifts
With compression,
Changing to turquoise,
And even violet,
If sufficiently compressed.
The melt water from the glacier
Often gets in on the act,
Turning a beautiful shade of blue.
No description,
No matter how picturesque
Or vividly dramatic
Can convey the impact
Of seeing the frozen rivers
Of blue ice in person.
It leaves a person in awe
Of the force of nature,
And overwhelmed by its beauty.

Mr. Parrot

In Southern Thailand,
I came across
On of the strangest parrots
I have ever seen.
He looked pretty much
Like a normal parrot
When he was awake
Or putting on a show,
But he had this habit
Of sleeping upside down
Like a large green bat.
When I saw him,
I just had to have him.
Luckily he had
A solid cage because
My pet chamort
Spent many a night
Trying to eat him.
One other thing
That was peculiar
About him was that
He appeared to
Be attempting
To communicate
With some sort of language
Based on the
The Independent
Opening and shutting
Of his eyelids
On each side of his head.
Of course I never was able
To decipher anything
He might have been trying to say,
But it was obviously
Not just random blinks.
I could tell
That bird was really smart,
And he did start
To pick up a limited English
Vocabulary before I left.

Little Tua

Tua was a baby
When I rescued him
From the villagers.
His parents
Had been killed
By hunters
There in the jungles
Of Southern Thailand,
And he was very sick,
More dead than alive.
One of his eyes
Was badly infected,
So I treated him with
Human eye medicine,
And to my surprise,
It worked.
Tua, the name I gave him,
Which means animal
In the Thai language,
Was a chamort,
Otherwise known as
A mortsang.
He was a nocturnal creature
With a reputation
For ferocity somewhat akin
To the wolverine
Back in North America,
And was supposed to be
Virtually untamable,
But he became
The best pet I ever had.
He was similar,
In body type,
To a mongoose,
Except they can grow
Up to four feet long,
Stand about two feet high,
And are natural experts
At climbing trees
In their jungle habitat.
He probably would have perished
Had I not discovered
His favorite delicacy by accident.
In moving a box
To make way
For my new guest,
I scattered a bunch
Of cockroaches,
And he immediately
Came to life,
And pounced on them
For a feast
Fit for a jungle king.
The poor thing
Must have been starving,
For I spent half the night,
Dislodging my
Unwelcome quests
So my new predator
Could dine.
From that night forward,
We were inseparable.
He would sleep
In the rafters
During the day,
And as soon as
Late evening came,
Down he would come,
Looking for food.
If I had already
Gone to bed,
He would come up
And grab my little finger
And give it a tug.
If I didn’t respond
Fast enough,
He would chomp down
A little harder
Until he was sure
I was awake,
So I could scare out
Some dinner for him.
Tua was a very smart
Little animal.
I suppose by the process
Of natural selection,
They have to be intelligent
To survive in the jungle.
I never had to toilet train him.
He saw me using
The toilet just once,
And got the idea immediately.
From then on,
He used the toilet,
Just like a real person.
I have had many dogs
Over the years,
But not a single one of them
Was anywhere near
As sharp as Tua.
He used to ride on my shoulder
Everywhere I went,
And when I was riding
My motorcycle,
He would come along too.
He seemed to love
The wind rushing through
And combing his hair.
He would travel up
To the headlight,
Then cross overtop of me,
And head down
The other side
To the tail light’
Then back again.
When I stopped
Near a tree,
He would jump off
And scurry to the top,
Catching a frog or two
On the way up,
And as soon as I
Got back on the motorcycle,
Down he would come,
And jump back up
On my shoulder.
The only trouble
I ever had with Tua
Was when I got a parrot.
I quickly discovered
That parrots were another
Delicacy in his eyes.
I would hear the parrot
Squawking late at night,
There would be Tua
On top of the cage
Trying desperately
To get to the bird.
I would grab his tail
And stick it in the cage
And let the parrot
Chomp down on it,
But it was a lesson
That had to be repeated
Over and over again
Every second or third night.
I would have loved
To have taken him back
To the United States with me,
But he would never
Have been allowed in.
Fortunately I found
Someone else who had one,
So I turned him over
To them before I left.
That was a good thing too,
Because he got so big
That he became
A burden to carry.
Just imagine
A forty pound animal
Expecting to ride
On my shoulder while
I motored down the street.
He was no longer
My little Tua.

Neptune's Daughter

It was a romance
That began
Late one night
Aboard a fishing boat
Headed out to sea.
The seeds
May have been
Planted earlier,
But it wasn’t until then
That we were
Formally introduced.
I was mesmerized
By her dark beauty,
And tantalized
By the fragrance
Of her breath
As I was baptized
By her salty spray.
She enticed me on,
Seducing me
With her mystery
And her charm.
I wanted to know
Her intimately,
To ply her swells,
To dive into
The depths of her world,
And to walk
The sands of distant shores
Where she played.
She was Neptune’s daughter
And I would spend
The rest of my life
In her pursuit.

A Telltale Sign of Fish

There is a squadron
Of forty to fifty Pelicans
Leisurely floating
On the ocean surface
Just above the kelp beds
While five or six
Of their airborne compatriots
Circle about,
Building up altitude,
Before plunging in
After a fishy meal.
The birds are a telltale sign
Of a sizable school of fish,
And the school has attracted
Other predators as well.
A number of seals
Can be seen
Popping their heads out
Every now and then
Amongst the group of Pelicans.
Fisherman learn
To take note of such things.

A Most Peculiar Tree

It is a most peculiar tree,
Towering up to 100 feet high
In the Oregon forest,
A colorful hardwood evergreen,
That sheds its bark
But not its leaves.
Its trunk is coarse,
Black and crusty,
But its branches and limbs
Are deep reddish brown
Much of the year,
With smooth elegant lines
That stretch naked
To their leafy conclusions.
The bark peels midsummer
Revealing a white underside
Exposing green below.
The new bark gradually darkens
Back to reddish brown.
When the trees
Grow old and die,
Their limbs turn black as coal.
The trees depend
On the surrounding forest
To shield them from the wind
Because their roots
Are very shallow
And provide little anchorage
To prevent them from toppling.
Their sparse leaves
Minimize wind resistance.
The tree is known for its
Bell shaped flowers
That give off
A Jasmine like fragrance
In late Spring.
In the Fall,
The tree sports
Marble sized red berries
That draw flocks of robins.
Those foolish birds
Get roaring drunk
On the hallucinogenic juices
Of the berries,
And start dive bombing each other.
They create quite a racket
With their boisterous chirping
And intoxicated fights
Until they fall out of the trees
In a drunken stupor.
It is the Madrone tree,
A member of the Laurel family,
That is the secret
To the robins’ revelry.

The Storm's Aftermath

The storm struck
With all its fury
A week or two before,
Leaving in its wake
Wooden embattlements
Piled five feet high
Fronting the ocean,
And stretching in either direction
As far as the eye could see.
Twisted and knotted
Relics of trees
That once grew
Far back in the hills,
Logs stripped of bark,
Jetsam from the passing storm,
Litter the coast.
The sand had been washed away
Leaving only cobbles
On what used to be a beach.
Pieces of plywood,
Timbers large and small,
And entire trees are deposited
Helter-skelter
Along the shore.
Twisted shapes,
Wooden pieces
Sanded and carved
By the elements
Are being sorted and collected
By swarms of people
Working their way
Through the debris.
Reeds and bamboo
Are strewn about,
A large piece of piling,
Probably from the local pier,
And old tires
Complement the mess.
Rattlesnakes and rats
Reportedly populate the trash,
Having been washed
Out of the surrounding hills
Along with the rest of the litter.
Later the wood
Will be collected and burnt
In giant bonfires
On the beach,
A fiery tribute
To the power
Of the storm.

The Desert Basin

The arid wind continuously blows
Across the desert basin
Picking up grit as it goes,
Sandblasting the buttes
And wearing cavities and crevices
In the walls of the cliffs.
Desert animals inhabit
The wind made hollows,
Hiding during the heat of the day,
And making their rounds at night.
The wind drops its dusty load
On the valley floor
Forming dunes of sand
Which build relentlessly
To towering heights,
And swallow the sparse
Desert vegetation.
Miners from a century ago
Tried their luck
At harvesting the desert’s bounty,
But all that remains
Of their tormented efforts
Are twisted relics,
Ramshackle shacks,
Rusting metal mining gear
And piles of excavated rock
Littering the ground.
It is a harsh
And unforgiving land
With a beauty all its own.

Meeting Adjourned

It was the first time,
And incidentally the last,
I ever held
A major business meeting
In my home.
I had an environmental
Engineering construction company,
And we were coordinating
Who would do what
On one of our projects.
It was a really big deal for me.
There were four of us,
Each a key player in the venture,
Gathered around a table
In the sunroom
When my Golden Retriever
Made his entrance.
He wagged his tail
And greeted each person there
With dogged enthusiasm.
I’m not sure
If it was age, breed, diet
Or just a comment
On what he thought
Of our discussion,
But just as he turned to leave,
He issued a loud
And smelly retort
That instantly
Broke the meeting apart.

Lizards of the Dunes

Some people might think
Death Valley is
A desolate and forbidding place,
Inhospitable to man or beast,
But if you look close, however,
There are signs of life
Where you might least expect.
Not far from Stove Pipe Wells
Is an area of immense sand dunes
Popular for tourists,
Young lovers
And photographers alike.
What few visitors notice
In the bushes at the base
Of the dunes,
Was a population
Of desert iguanas
That live entirely
Off the leaves
Of those plants.
I have watched people
Follow the tracks
Of the lizards in the sand
And never notice
The ones in the bushes
Staring back at them.
They are not tiny either,
Getting up to
Three feet in length,
But they are
So well camouflaged ,
That few people
Can spot them
Hidden amongst
The sand and the bush.
They probably migrate
Across the desert floor,
Because I have been back
A time or two,
And failed to see them myself
Even though I knew
Where to look.
Hopefully, somewhere out there
Is a population of them
Still munching away,
Hidden from sight.

Little Dog

The boy had always wanted a dog,
A waggy-tailed critter
To greet him each day
When he got home,
But that had not been possible
In the apartment
In which he and his mother lived.
When they moved
To a larger place
With a yard of their own,
It still didn’t seem practical.
To appease the boy,
His mother bought him a hamster
Which was promptly given
The honorary title, “Little Dog.”
He was a sorry excuse for a dog,
But the little creature
Seemed perfectly content
In his new surroundings.
Little Dog would spend his days sleeping,
And his nights busily running
As fast as his legs could go
On the exercise wheel.
It didn’t seemed to bother him
That it never took him anywhere,
And he didn’t even mind
If people called him a dog.
Little Dog was happy being himself.

My Gator and I

A friend from school
Offered me
His pet alligator,
Saying he could
No longer keep it,
And I jumped
At the opportunity.
What young boy
Wouldn’t have?
I stashed him
In our bath tub
Which I partially filled
With water
So he could
Swim around,
Then tried to figure out
What to feed him.
What do you feed
A 2.5 foot long alligator?
He must have been
Ravishingly hungry
Because he went after
My fingers and toes
With a vengeance.
After a couple days
Without a shower,
And observing that the gator
Was getting
Frantically hungry,
I decided to let him go
In the swamps
Near where I lived
Where he could probably
Find something
He liked to eat
Besides me,
Maybe some frogs
Or fish, or something.
Twenty-five years later,
I happened to read
About an 18-foot long alligator
That eat a hiker’s dog
In a swamp
East of Las Vegas.
I could never know for sure,
But I had
A pretty good suspicion
Whose gator that was!

Changing Seasons

To a certain extent
Southern California
Has only two seasons;
Cool Wet,
And Hot Dry.
I have grown accustomed
To the nature of our seasons,
And I don’t particularly miss
The long bitter Michigan winters.
Here in “The Land of Two Seasons,”
The snow gets close enough
So that I can see it
On the mountains
In the distance
And that is good enough for me.
Most trees and shrubs
Stay green throughout the year,
So I miss
The turning of the leaves
Warning of winter ahead,
But then I don’t have to
Put up with the winter cold either.
Spring is different here as well.
I don’t get to see
The overnight proliferation of leaves
As the trees come to life
Magically relieving the dreariness
Of the winter,
But the verdant green
Of the California hills,
And the blooming
Of the desert flowers
Following the rains
Are as beautiful
As any Spring
I can remember.

A Sense of Our Changing Planet

As my daughters
Were growing up,
I made it a practice
To point out
Changes I observed
Going on around us.
Our planet
And the ground
Beneath our feet
Are in a constant
State of flux,
And I wanted them
To be aware
Of the processes involved.
California is a phenomenal place
To observe
The forces of nature
In action.
We have abundant cliffs
And bare mountains
Offering vivid evidence
Of the tectonic contortions
To which the land
Has been subjected.
Massive landslides,
Both ancient and modern,
Are clearly visible.
The tendency of the mountains
To slowly migrate to the sea
Is blatantly obvious.
Major fault zones
Crisscross the terrain,
And there are dramatic signs
That much of the land
Rose from the sea
Eons ago.
Tilted geologic features
Give testimony
To the massive displacements
Which have occurred.
I showed them seashells
On mountain tops
And high wave cut benches
Hundreds of feet
Above the sea.
We saw beach front homes
And much of our local pier
Wash out to sea.
We saw massive dredging operations
Battling to keep
The harbors open
And sand on the beaches.
We walked among the driftwood
On the beach
After a major storm,
Spotting wood and debris
That had washed down
From high in the mountains.
We saw fire, drought and flood
And pictures of
Mt. St. Helens erupting.
We learned of El Niño
And witnessed it’s impact.
We noticed insects and spiders
That seemed to mysteriously
Come and go,
Frogs that silently vanish,
And we wonder
Where they went.
I told them about
Desert animals
I caught as a child,
That can no longer be found.
We read of disappearing rain forests
And expanding desert sands.
I told them of things
I had seen in far away places,
About the desolate deserts
Of Northern Peru
Where masses of people
Once lived and harvested crops,
About Stonehenge
And other monuments
To distant times
And long ago people.
Even in the short time
They have been alive,
My daughters have witnessed
Phenomenal change.
None of us have any idea
What is normal
Or how fast the world
Is supposed to change.
We have our opinions
As to whether
The changes we see
Are good or bad,
But our opinions
Don’t really matter.
We are merely spectators
Watching the planet change.

Rainbow Falls

I stumbled upon
The waterfall
While hiking through
The woods
One late August
Afternoon.
I had heard
Its rumblings
From perhaps
A quarter mile away,
Yet it still took me
Close to an hour
To traverse the brush
And rocky slope
To get where
I could see
What all the commotion
Was about.
The waterfall
Cascaded down
From a narrow channel
Chiseled into
A granite ledge,
And dropped
More than a hundred feet,
Thundering
As it pummeled
The boulders below.
A refreshing mist
Hung in the air
At the base
Of the falls
That refracted
The afternoon sun
Into a spectacular,
But simple rainbow,
The beauty and perfection
Of which,
Instantly buoyed
My spirits.

The Spirit of the Sea

I have seen the ocean
In all its varied moods,
Calm and tranquil
Without a ripple
As far as the eye can see,
Then raging in angry fury,
Hurling its might
Against the land.
I have seen towering waves
Over a hundred feet high
And been stuck in the doldrums
With no wind for the sail,
Baking in the equatorial sun.
I have braved its arctic cold
And basked in its tropical warmth.
I have explored its reefs,
Dove to nearly a 100 feet
In its murky wetness
And gazed into its infinite depths.
I have sailed for weeks
Without sight of land,
Boat or plane,
Lost in its vastness,
And I have seen it froth
With a school of tuna
Stretching as far
As the eye could see,
Horizon to horizon.
Though it may at times
Appear fickle in spirit,
Obstinate or irritable,
I have learned
To appreciate its beauty
And respect its power.

The Sentinel

The mighty oak stands alone,
An anomalous sentinel
Presiding over a barren hill,
Doing leafy battle
With the wind.
The tree was a gift
To the local skyline
By some magnanimous donor,
Either man or God.
However it got there,
It was planted
Long before my time
And it has stubbornly grown
Year after year
Surviving drought and deluge,
Thriving in isolated neglect,
To become
A formidable giant.
It’s seldom visited
Except by occasional hikers,
A few wandering cows
And a couple obnoxious crows
Who call it home.
Those who come
Generally stop
To relax in its shade
And enjoy its lofty point of view
Overlooking the surrounding area.
Who knows what history
The tree has witnessed.
It could have been there
Before the Spaniards came,
And may well be there
After all of us are gone.

The Mountain

The mountain towers
Over the surrounding range,
Dominating the terrain.
Its peak is usually
Shrouded in clouds,
But on those rare occasions
When it thrusts
Its icy head out
For all the world to see,
It’s breathtakingly beautiful.
The weather up there
Can be dangerously fickle,
Clear and shiny one moment
And a raging blizzard the next.
Its slopes are rugged,
Steep and treacherous.
Only the hardy
Or the foolhardy
Try to conquer its face
And there are always
A few of each
Answering its call.

On Top of the World

Standing tall,
And crowning the ridge
Above the valley,
Is a gigantic rock
That lures hikers
And novice climbers
From all around.
The rock is eternal,
Having withstood
The test of time
And the forces of nature
That ground down
And washed away
All but solid granite.
Now it stands alone,
A monument to
The wonders of nature
And the durability of stone.
It’s barren surface
Is smooth and clean,
Yet endowed with
Natural footholds
That make climbing relatively easy.
The view from on top
Is absolutely spectacular
And well worth the climb.
From its crest it seems
As if you are overlooking
The entire world,
And all your worldly concerns
Magically dissipate
From that lofty perspective.