[with 3 poems from litmosphere
Journal of CHARLOTTE LIT]
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Birds Speak to the Women in My Family
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This time,
+++++ when a trail of feathers
+++++ +++++ leads me into the forest,
+++++ +++++ +++++ I follow.
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Don’t think about where it’s taking me,
only the flightless thing, torn to tufts,
crawling in the underbrush,
but I find no blood, no body.
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Whisper of deep woods
Of gifts and pleasures planted and earthed. What was I
so afraid it would say?
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I’m here,
+++++ arm full of feathers, unsure
+++++ +++++ which of us is the offering,
+++++ +++++ +++++ which way is home.
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My grandmother was told
by an out-of-season swallow
when her mother died.
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We have family in town,
my mother says, pointing to a pair of sandhill cranes
stilt walking through the yard.
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I’ve collected
+++++ so many feathers.
+++++ +++++ I could be mistaken
+++++ +++++ +++++ for wings.
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My mother’s tongue,
her mother’s birdsong
softer with every daughter,
but still a trace, feather by feather
through the old mountains,
disappearing into stone.
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Arielle Hebert
litmosphere, Journal of Charlotte Lit, Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, © 2023
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Chilly for June, but after all sunrise isn’t for another half hour. It’s 5:25 AM and Sharon and I are standing in the Surry County foothills a few miles south of the Virginia line. At 5:30 we’ll begin to count. Last year at this very spot a Chuck-Will’s-Widow fired up and sang for 45 seconds before I’d even started the timer. I counted him anyway.
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This year the first voice is a Wood Thrush. Oh, thank you, Audubon’s flute . . . in the summer woods, silver notes pour by the afternoon river. Of all the forest’s music my favorite. Now Catbird, Cardinal, Chipping Sparrow, Indigo Bunting; I call their names when I hear them sing – still too dark to see. Sharon inscribes their presence on our tally sheet. One by one, they fly from mysterious spirit into settled data points.
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I didn’t really believe Sharon at first. Back in March she asked me to describe these USGS Breeding Bird Surveys and then said, “Can I come?” Really? Pick you up at 5 AM to drive to our first stop? Then 49 more stops, spaced half a mile apart? Set the timer for 3 minutes, count every bird heard or seen, then back in the car and on to the next? Finish late morning somewhere northeast of Pilot Mountain with Hanging Rock looming? You really want to do that? “Yes! Really! And I’ll bring a picnic!”
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Now we’re at Stop 28. Some of the landmark descriptions, established decades ago when these survey routes were first established, are obscure and changeable: overhead power lines and opening in trees. Well, yes, there is a nice opening in the mixed forest, and yes, there’s an Indigo Bunting as expected. Now we hear a Scarlet Tanager, first one of the morning, but these devious birds love to glean insects at the very apex of the canopy and you could crick your neck trying to spot one. Nevertheless there it appears, flitting to the outer branches of a tall loblolly. Brilliant crimson, stark black wings, pausing to snatch a moth then raise beak in its raucous warble. Sharon gasps. “I’ve glimpsed a Tanager before, but I’ve never seen one in the open. Oh my! This is worth the trip!”
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And we still have 22 more stops. Not to mention the promise of a picnic at Hanging Rock.
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Enter the litmosphere, a universe of writers and readers. The readers may be physically situated anywhere in the world, same for the writers although they must at some time have lived in North Carolina or one if its four bordering states. Today’s poems appear in the second annual edition of litmosphere as winners, finalists, or semi-finalists in this year’s Lit/South Awards.
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Charlotte Lit, the Lit/South Awards, and the publication of litmosphere are the brainchildren of Kathie Collins (East Bend, NC) and Paul Reali (Charlotte, NC). In establishing the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, they are creating a community of writers with a unique definition of Southern, and the poetry, essays, and fiction in this year’s journal speak from a creative realm without boundaries. Place and persona are powerfully freed from constraint. I really could not anticipate where the turn of each page would take me. Ever been welcomed into a gathering that challenges you, surprises you, fills empty spots you didn’t even know you had? And leaves you feeling welcomed and ready for more?
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Charlotte Lit, besides its annual contest, offers more than a hundred classes and events every year. Membership information is available here:
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Of Rock Doves
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We call these doves pigeons
because they are many
because we once built them cotes
because we collected their guano
because we spread it on melon
patches and near tomato beds
because they bob their heads
in their staggering walk
like professional wrestlers
at the end of their careers
because they can’t see
straight ahead any other way
because they are easily misled
because no matter what
some find their way back home
because when some vanish
there are always many more
because their name is an echo
of the hungry noises
that come from their flimsy nests
because they raid each other’s nests
they kill their neighbors’ young
because they kill their own young
because together in a group
they are called a deuil
which means mourning in French
because we eat their young
because they taste so sweet
and have very small bones
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Paul Jones
litmosphere, Journal of Charlotte Lit, Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, © 2023
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When the Universe Told Me You Were Dead
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That very morning, the feral cat left
a dead bluebird on my doorstep,
splayed open.
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Heart gutted, this remained:
a blood-empty chamber
caged behind delicate, shattered bone.
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Newly lifeless, feathers still wet
with morning sky, the orbs of her
eyes set to flight.
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Anita Cantillo
litmosphere, Journal of Charlotte Lit, Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, © 2023
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Audubon in the summer woods
by the afternoon river sips
his flute, his fingers swimming on
the silver as silver notes pour
by the afternoon river sips
his flute, his fingers swimming on
the silver as silver notes pour
. . .
from Audubon’s Flute by Robert Morgan
[read the entire poem here]
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NOTE: June 19-24, 2023 is NATURALIST WEEK sponsored by Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. Wherever you are in the world, you can participate in the Naturalist Challenge by spending time outdoors as a naturalist: Pay Attention; Ask Questions; Make Connections; Share. You can also receive a prize if you earn 25 points for your activities! See details here:
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The Breeding Bird Survey is a long-term, large-scale, international avian monitoring program initiated in 1966 to track trends of North American bird populations. There are currently over 4100 courses in the US and Canada, run each spring by volunteer surveyors, and in recent years Mexico has also been added. More than 450 scientific publications have relied heavily, if not entirely, on BBS data; essentially every avian conservation study in North America turns to the BBS in some way.
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In the 1960’s, Chandler Robbins and colleagues at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center were developing survey techniques to monitor populations of hunted birds: Woodcock, Snipe, Mourning Dove. Inspired by Rachel Carson and her publication of Silent Spring in 1962, Robbins realized that larger surveys were needed to document the effects of DDT, as well as other human and non-human variables affecting bird populations. He invented the roadside survey used today: 50 stops plotted on a 24.5 mile course to be counted once a year. The goal is broad longitudinal observation rather than stop-by-stop variation, and the technique for counting in 2023 is the same as in 1966: a single observer, no “pishing” or other enticements to the birds, no apps or electronics, just two ears and field glasses.
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I ran my first course in 1995: Copeland, southern Surry County. I’ve counted the course every spring except when BBS shut down for COVID in 2020 (because many courses run through parks and federal lands that were closed to visitors that year). In 2022 I added a second course when it became vacant, Mount Airy in northern Surry County. If you’re interested next year, I’ll pick you up at 5 AM. But Sharon has first dibs.
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Bill
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Many thanks, Judd. Watch for a personal email with instructions. ---B