By T.W. Burger
Long ago, I figured I’d be dead by now.
Nearly was, a few times.
The woods are the same;
Different orders of trees,
Slight variations in the
Birds, bugs, flowers,
But nothing major.
Back then I went everywhere with nothing but a notebook, pen, and
One small dog named Rascal.
Today I have a serious camera,
But mostly I shoot from the car;
The knees are gone,
Rascal long dead.
I remember a Cooper’s Hawk
Sitting briefly next to me on a
Fallen tree, and
Lying beside a 300-pound
Sea turtle as she laid
More than 100 eggs above the
Tide line.
And the little dog tearing
Through the woods
In hot pursuit of deer,
Returning empty-jawed,
Ecstatic.
It is all to be celebrated,
Of course,
The pursued and the pursuer,
The seed and harvester,
The living and the dying
The light and the dark.
A whole day would pass
On the shores of a beaver pond,
In the thick, sharp-scented pines,
Serenaded by the rough humor of
Blue Jays.
Here in the northeast,
The Jays are fewer and have better diction.
Hawks no longer sit next to me,
I suppose because I have managed to lose both
Mobility and Stillness.
Still,
In good weather, I love to fall
Asleep under a tree
For the simple joy of
Waking to birdsong and
For the half-second of not
Remembering who I am
Or even that I am anyone;
Simply a set of senses
Making note.
T.W. Burger was raised in Athens. He graduated from Athens High School in 1967. He worked as a driver of everything from fork trucks to garbage trucks and concrete mixers, has been an apprentice mortician and ambulance attendant.
He has been a newspaper reporter since 1985, mostly in Gettysburg, PA, with various stints at other publications. Semi-retired, he is still working as a freelance writer and lives on the banks of Marsh Creek just outside of Gettysburg.
He is the author of "The Year of the Moon Goose" is currently writing “Never Met a Stranger.”