Comments on: The Great Divide

By: MB

MB — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:58:39 +0000

I was aghast the first time I witnessed a plain little bird dash itself into a snow-banked torrent. And amazed when it later popped up on a slippery, black rock, apparently satisfied.

Shaman birds, hm? Yes.

By: bev

bev — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:42:02 +0000

Yes, Bisbee. Thanks for the reminder about Shelton’s books. I should definitely pick up copies at one of the local stores.
I’ve never heard of ouzels drownings, but they certainly venture into some pretty wild torrents and I’ve waited to see if they come out okay. They usually pop up a few seconds later, often several feet away. In addition to their underwater antics, they are incredibly agile fliers. At a few of the canyon rivers which I like to visit, they race past, skimming the water, tilting and zigzagging to avoid large rocks, at speeds that are almost too fast for the eye to follow. Such amazing little birds.

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:58:55 +0000

The American dipper, how I yearned for them, as long ago as they were called that name. Your poem is wonderful.

I first saw ouzels, even being a westerner, only a couple of years ago, on a beautiful river, the North Umpqua. Shamans. Yes. I think they are.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:13:10 +0000

Yep, Mom covered Stanwell-Fletcher in Women in the Field. I wonder if that’s true about the drowning? A fascinating detail if so.

Thanks for the great comment. I like your closing thought.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:55:16 +0000

Theodora Stanwell-Fletcher, a naturalist of whom your mother may have written, wrote memorably on ouzels who overwintered on their lake in middlenorth B.C. They cheered her on the coldest mornings.

Someone who I think really did know told me once that ouzels occasionally drown themselves, he said, out of exuberance.

Great, vivid poem. I love the incarnations of the ouzel in the gay couple and in your brother; it’s such a great set-up to first meet the ouzel bobbing and winging at campground, in the backseat of a family station wagon; as neighbor, as brother. When the ouzel finally takes to water it takes all that is familiar, all dry land with it.

Between this poem and an image by Pete McGregor, I’ve had the facile thought that birds are landscape concentrated.

By: Annamari

Annamari — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:36:09 +0000

it flows with beauty and nostalgia…a great start:” In our first river west” and a great final:”what that watery solitude/sounded like/from within.”

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:03:19 +0000

When I was at university some friends made me a birthday cake in the shape of a dipper, having surreptitiously asked me what my favourite bird was.

I might choose something different now (something glamorous like a toucan or hummingbird? Or hoopoe or bee-eater or roller… or maybe lapwing, or long-tailed tit or I don’t know what), but dipper would probably be in my top ten.

By: Clare

Clare — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:55:03 +0000

Very poignant Dave, and I can’t think of a better person to dedicate it to.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:50:59 +0000

Dick - Thanks. I worked on this thing for a week, believe it or not, until I finally gave up on the perfect, John Haines- or Tomas Transtromer-style poem I wanted to write and just wrote down what I remembered in my own voice. bev - I'm so glad it resonated with you. The post I linked to, with the John Muir quote and videos, had such depth. Bisbee, right? I suppose you know Richard Shelton wrote an entire book about Going Back to Bisbee. (A wonderful poet. I love his work. He also wrote a memoir about teaching in the prisons called Crossing the Yard, which I recommend to anyone interested in social justice issues, in poetry, or in education.) Dale - "Shaman birds," exactly! Muir says that even when they fly above the water, they stay as close to the surface as possible, even flying up the face of waterfalls. I guess you must get to see quite a bit of them on your annual family vacations.

By: dale

dale — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:04:23 +0000

Wonderful poem. They’re shaman birds, crossing from world to world as easily as you and I go from room to room. I love that they’re such dull shabby nondescript-looking things.