June Moon Soon

[rejectomorph]

The fledgling jay I saw yesterday is not fully fledged after all. Today I saw the adult flutter down into the dense ground cover near the bushes at the back corner of the house. The telltale sound of a young bird being fed arose, and the adult flew off. I checked and there was the young bird, barely visible in the oxalis. Perhaps it will discover sow bugs or young, tender crickets there. Perhaps it will survive long enough to fly at last. But I'd say the odds are slim.

Yet June has begun pleasantly, the air not yet oppressive, the breezes soft and fragrant with jasmine, the crickets greeting mild evening with slow chirps. It's no time to be sitting at the keyboard. So what do I find? SurLaLune, a huge website full of fascinating stuff about fairy tales:

"SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 47 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations."

Well, there goes the night!


Sunday Verse (from SurDeLune, as a sample)

A Sleeping Beauty

by James Whitcomb Riley


An alien wind that blew and blew
Over the fields where the ripe grain grew,

Sending ripples of shine and shade
That crept and crouched at her feet and played.

The sea-like summer washed the moss
Till the sun-drenched lilies hung like floss,

Draping the throne of green and gold
That lulled her there like a queen of old.

II

Was it the hum of a bumblebee,
Or the long-hushed bugle eerily

Winding a call to the daring Prince
Lost in the wood long ages since?—

A dim old wood, with a palace rare
Hidden away in its depths somewhere!

Was it the Princess, tranced in sleep,
Awaiting her lover's touch to leap

Into the arms that bent above?
To thaw his heart with the breath of love—

And cloy his lips, through her waking tears,
With the dead-ripe kiss of a hundred years!

III

An alien wind that blew and blew.—
I had blurred my eyes as the artists do,

Coaxing life to a half-sketched face,
Or dreaming bloom for a grassy place.

The bee droned on in an undertone;
And a shadow-bird trailed all alone

Across the wheat, while a liquid cry
Dripped from above, as it went by.

What to her was the far-off whir
Of the quail's quick wing or the chipmunk's chirr?—

What to her was the shade that slid
Over the hill where the reapers hid?—

Or what the hunter, with one foot raised,
As he turned to go—yet, pausing, gazed?

Comments

[rejectomorph]

The bird was still there this afternoon. In fact I'm beginning to suspect that the jays have their nest in the bush at the corner of the house, and the fledgling I saw yesterday was the first to fly, not the last. I think I saw it on the roof of the house next door a couple of times today. It's a second fledgling that has apparently fallen into the oxalis below the bush, and at least one more is still in the nest. I haven't gotten close to inspect because, well, blue jays. Once you get hair ripped from your head by one of them you don't forget, which I suppose is the point they're trying to make when they de-tuft part of your scalp.