Remembering Home....

Coming Home

In the home of my mind a Poinciana,

blazing scarlet, stretches shade over

the curved driveway of our house;

an upstairs veranda shouts to sea.

Above: Close-up of one of the Poinciana blossom clusters and the first stanza from my poem, "Coming Home" --- which I hope is in its final editing stages.

Baby Blue before 1st Flight

A couple days ago, I was lucky enough to see the first baby blue make its first flight out of the hatch box after a couple of days watching it measure and ponder. It was pretty wondrous. I didn't catch the flight on camera but it may have been hard as he took off in a flash. My camera did record a bit of the activities prior with -- it seemed -- hours of watching baby blue plucking up the courage to take off. Ma & Pa were still busily feeding him and it seemed, minutes before, he was "bleating" --- probably hungry. The blues were cleaning out the nest--at intervals-- flying out with egg shell fragments in their beaks. I was still not able to get in close enough for what I would consider art shots but there will at least give a flavor of the event. The top photo shows Ma & Pa Blue sometime during the momentous event. The flying filaments are my "magic halo" to keep house sparrow from taking over the nest earlier in the season.

DAYLIGHT WHISPERS

© Evie Chang Henderson

Morning’s reluctant fog slinks
and daylight whispers arch
over woods defining
the untamed foliage beneath me;
grass tassels heavy with seed
sway gently in the wind––
a bob white’s call echoes across,
punctuated by shrill cries of
a killdeer mourning her nest
destroyed in newly mowed grass.

There’s always company
on this mile of wires and poles;
early chatter and chirps rise and fall––
eager to start the day.
But I must be watchful––
hawks also prowl the neighborhood.
Each day has a story and
sometimes the road below
veins with blood––beckoning
vultures who can feast for days.

Clouds bank––still blush,
beyond trees that rim these fields,
then streak white across the sky
to waters that lap
docks and bulkheads nearby––
a saltiness in confluence
with earth musk and morning glory.
But, it’s time to move on,
grasshoppers are beginning to stir
and feed I must.

(First Place, Poetry/New Bern Literary Symposium - 2009)

Monarch Butterfly on Pink Zinnia

Each year, I plant a patch of zinnias for the butterflies. Monarchs and swallowtails love zinnias. This photo was taken in my garden last year. I was disturbed to read that this year, the Monarch population may be down 50%. This is due to a very cold winter, herbicides and of course, destruction of habitat. Monarchs do about a 3,000 mile roundtrip migration each year. Next year, I'm going to try to plant a milkweed habitat for them.

Thinking about the Brown Pelican

I always thought that Pelicans were, next to sea-gulls, the most prevalent sea bird there was. But the other day, while reading about the wildlife threatened in the Louisiana coastal marshes, I discovered that the brown pelican is really on the edge of being a threatened specie. I photographed this brown pelican last year down at Calabash, SC.

Opinions People Have...

Today, I overheard a few associates of mine talking about the Gulf of Mexico Disaster. While most of the group were bemoaning the catastrophe, one person said that she thought the media was making too much of the situation...that yes, it'll affect the fish, etc. but all we have to do is get used to not eating shrimp for a while.

I was too stunned to say anything and since I was not a part of the immediate group conversation, I did not add to the conversation.

Critically Endangered

My paintings from my last exhibit, "Feathers & Fins" spoke of the demise of the environment using coastal metaphors. The recent BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is so incredibly sad and depressing that I returned to view my images from that show. One of them titled "Critically Endangered" with the looming black shape in the upper left (note the segment of wing in left foreground) speaks of the huge danger our bird and marine life is faced with.

Water Lily

I'm going back into my Photo files, reviewing and re-editing. What I did a year ago doesn't seem satisfactory anymore. Yesterday and today, I've been looking at my waterlily collection of photos and working on sharpening these images. Here's the web version of one.