Like Stones - Poetry By Ronald Rabenold

The other day while I was cleaning clams on our porch for my son's birthday dinner, over my shoulder I spied a bird's quick descent onto Whistler's Ice Dam.  It was much too rapid for a goose or a duck.  The Osprey emerged with his catch, struggling to fly straight before it could  streamline the fish in his grip.  The following words are inspired by that scene mixed with a bit of my wobbly walk along the Middle Path. 

(I do not have my own pictures of an Osprey.  The bird in this picture is a Turkey Vulture, a cousin to the California Condor, kettling in the thermals of Mt Pisgah, along the Lehigh River.)

When Hawks take rabbits, Osprey take fish.

On your walk today, what questions came to mind?

No doubt the Mallard pairings stirred and made ripples,

There was enough forsythia scent to charm this bee.

Did you question this world without them

Never now, never at all.

What will bloom next from this?

What will we say when there are no more words, no more stones

Even those with plenty will wish they had stones.

When did you gently push those things away?

No doubt the Osprey snagged and dragged his meal from the depths

The ripples were beside the point.

He satisfied forward, into another day.

The Man in a hurry did not see the grab

He was holding, tightly on, to memories to fantasies,

With hardening, like stones.

By Ronald Rabenold – April 8, 2010