5.3.25 (1:45pm) Holden, Maine Sunny and partly cloudy: 69-70 degrees Hearing the hummingbirds zooming to the nectar, and the brown-headed cowbirds chittering from the roof with their tinkling voices, ringing like bells, I can’t help feeling a deep sense of peace. Happiness and peace, as Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh might say, is not only found in nature, but is our nature.  While Albus Dumbledore might suggest it can be found “even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers

(Celeste Cota Photography) I never remember how numb Maine water feels on my toes. Irrelevant the cloud count or the blazing hot iron sun brought on by these scorching months, the heat breaking open the skin on my back, raising and razing hell from the bone out. 50 degrees is 50 degrees. The tidepools are irrelevant too - misleadingly inviting. Close your eyes and you could picture yourself in Cancun. But no, the Atlantic doesn’t care for your daydreams.  My one-piece fee

Found the body of a bird in the grass  Beside a 6-story bank downtown  An Eastern Phoebe, lying low  With a cracked wing and a bent crown A band around its ankle Tells me its death won’t go unknown, Thank god for that little tracking band,  Thank god I’m not grieving alone. *Note: this poem is a fictionalized (or should I say poeticized?) version of a story I was told by a bird conservationist, and the unfortunate number of songbirds that are killed each year flying into glas

Photo provided by Wix Originally published in the March 2025 Plethodon Log When the cold February wind hits me in the face at 12mph, I...

Photo by Nola Prevost Poem published in Spire: The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability, Issue 8 We, the impossible seeds of life, We Sing tales of days past As if it is not the present We are hoping to serenade. And We, the stewards of the land, We Sail over great bodies As if it is not our own brethren In the shadow of the hull. And We, the veins of the planet, We Make light of our feats As if we are not someone else's future, As if our ancestors are not proud.