Raven dance (& misc. notes)
Posted: April 15th, 2006, 3:46 pm
March 22:
First day of leisure, start to finish. I sit on the porch, under a tattered shade canopy two or three storms from collapse, with a splendid view of Red's post-industrious playground, shirking my life's mission, watching clouds form over expired mining artifacts, as I promised. Rodentia rules this place by night, but rabbits run it by day. Jackrabbits won't let me near, but the cottontails aren't too concerned-- I haven't shot at them, yet. I'm on my third Pabst when I notice perfect sunlight on Red's 1919 Fordson crawler tractor. So I tote my camera to the spot, click the moment, and start back. Rabbits shoot from nooks as I pass.... then, Raaak.... the big raven bursts over a low mesa, wings toward his hangout by the Indian caves. Except his mate intercepts him from the other side of the hill, and aerobatics ensue-- a raven dance....
It flows-- circle and swoop, figure-eight and return, touch wings in barrel-roll flutter.... raaak.... the big raven breaks, flies straight overhead, makes a wide loop, rejoins the show.... circle and call, touch wings in a twisting dive, break and circle, reunite, fly together, loop, swoop and roll.... raaak.... So it goes for a good five minutes. I stand and watch, by the big air compressor, camera still in hand.
April 5:
In a desert known for suffocating heat, I can't get warm. I am with cloud. Surely billow and bellow shall follow me-- refreshing, dull bluster which built dismal ports up north, turned firecracker deserts sullen overnight, in my footsteps. Genetic lead-gray. Or perhaps I never protested directly....
So I climb the west mesa, articulate my concerns politely, firmly. Man versus hammered heavens. I'll wait for as long as it takes-- I brought a parka and beer. The sky is a fractured textbook, stuffed with every cloud known to science-- jam and scrape, like twenty college students in a phone booth. These are unstable times. I stand against the new Ice Age while greasewoods bend, with more common sense.
Clouds imitate all facets of land, and latent fear-- inestimable even at dead-still, let alone this aggression. They are severed, faulted, blown-up, ripped. Distended lenticular slabs run over billow. Billow runs aground-- every caste, shade, canyon and shape of it-- charcoal rocket-blobs to compound, dirty snow-scapes, the sum of which thicken straight above. The sun goes west, the cloud, east, except spontaneous wisps feed cloud, keep the sun jailed. But cracks start to form, billow breaks apart, rocket-blobs evaporate. My protest seems to be working....
First day of leisure, start to finish. I sit on the porch, under a tattered shade canopy two or three storms from collapse, with a splendid view of Red's post-industrious playground, shirking my life's mission, watching clouds form over expired mining artifacts, as I promised. Rodentia rules this place by night, but rabbits run it by day. Jackrabbits won't let me near, but the cottontails aren't too concerned-- I haven't shot at them, yet. I'm on my third Pabst when I notice perfect sunlight on Red's 1919 Fordson crawler tractor. So I tote my camera to the spot, click the moment, and start back. Rabbits shoot from nooks as I pass.... then, Raaak.... the big raven bursts over a low mesa, wings toward his hangout by the Indian caves. Except his mate intercepts him from the other side of the hill, and aerobatics ensue-- a raven dance....
It flows-- circle and swoop, figure-eight and return, touch wings in barrel-roll flutter.... raaak.... the big raven breaks, flies straight overhead, makes a wide loop, rejoins the show.... circle and call, touch wings in a twisting dive, break and circle, reunite, fly together, loop, swoop and roll.... raaak.... So it goes for a good five minutes. I stand and watch, by the big air compressor, camera still in hand.
April 5:
In a desert known for suffocating heat, I can't get warm. I am with cloud. Surely billow and bellow shall follow me-- refreshing, dull bluster which built dismal ports up north, turned firecracker deserts sullen overnight, in my footsteps. Genetic lead-gray. Or perhaps I never protested directly....
So I climb the west mesa, articulate my concerns politely, firmly. Man versus hammered heavens. I'll wait for as long as it takes-- I brought a parka and beer. The sky is a fractured textbook, stuffed with every cloud known to science-- jam and scrape, like twenty college students in a phone booth. These are unstable times. I stand against the new Ice Age while greasewoods bend, with more common sense.
Clouds imitate all facets of land, and latent fear-- inestimable even at dead-still, let alone this aggression. They are severed, faulted, blown-up, ripped. Distended lenticular slabs run over billow. Billow runs aground-- every caste, shade, canyon and shape of it-- charcoal rocket-blobs to compound, dirty snow-scapes, the sum of which thicken straight above. The sun goes west, the cloud, east, except spontaneous wisps feed cloud, keep the sun jailed. But cracks start to form, billow breaks apart, rocket-blobs evaporate. My protest seems to be working....
