Category: Nature

The Escape Artist

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Tabby’s cage at the shelter was comfortably furnished. People were nice to her, but she wanted her freedom. One of your more adventurous cats, her motto was:  “Risks are for the taking.” She prowled through the catio looking for a way out.

She eyed the perimeter. From an adjacent field, the scent of fresh mice and catnip tempted her. She wiggled her butt and leapt to the top of a rug-covered cat tower. From there, she spied a hole at the top of the enclosure. No one was around. She scaled the six foot wire wall and made her escape.

A(u)nt Queens

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The bread was fresh and I was terrifically hungry, so I helped myself. 

My aunt scolded me. “Crumbs, you left crumbs. The ants found them and carried them in a line through the kitchen. They’re back for the sugar.”

I cleaned the floor where the ants had left a trail. She scolded me. “I’m getting fond of them. They have personalities. See that large one.”

”That’s the Queen.” 

“Where’s her crown?” 

“It’s her size.” 

My aunt, a large woman, pondered this. “We have that in common.”

They also love bread.

They are fast friends now, my aunt and the Ant Queen.

The Dark Reign of Winter

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Stride, stride, stride in rhythm, thunder, lightning, falling rain.
Sky dark bursts of water, soggy, wet, boggy, cold
Slow, slow, slow on reaching shelter, comfort, hearth and home
Build a fire, light it quick, make a pyre, a righteous pile
Of all that grieves, grieves, grieves a dark heart,
A burdened heart, weighed with sorrows, like bombs exploding
In black bursts of regret, regret, regret no solace yet.
Slowly warmth creeps through the air, beauty erupts in licks of varicolored flame.
Familiar objects tug, tug, tug at memory,
Filled with thoughts of times past when life was ours, and freedom.

Three AM Thoughts After Listening to a Zoom Featuring Robert Haas

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We met on the mountain at the halfway point between up and down. 
Hard-packed dirt bordered by scrappy shrubs 
and occasional candy wrappers, 
the path slid into loose gravel,
washboard erosion.
We braced, slowed, stopped. 
We stood face to face, more honest than when we fought,
voices raised in anger at slights so minor as to be unmemorable. 
We embraced, we wept, we sat on a boulder 
looked out on the sea, 
its azure blue, green, purple depths 
roiling, settling, welling up.
We wavered, pulled by the gravity of the moon and the earth.
We hovered between earth and sky.

Let Us Eat Chocolate

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The Easter Bunny wore a polkadot tie to the Last Supper. The feast was well attended. The patriarchs wore yamakas, clerical collars, or golden chains of office. They made nice on the dais as an example for others. It was the Easter Bunny who’d brought it to their attention. Holy wars, though none is really holy, were on the rise. 

Everyone agreed, if it got to Crusades level conflict, they’d need to call on Mother Nature to create another Great Flood. Yes, it was her. She gave a moving speech about climate change. The Easter Bunny passed out chocolate eggs.

It’s All Greek to Me

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Rain came down in buckets. Frogs poured out. They hit the ground with a splat. No one knew how frogs had spawned in rainclouds, or if that was what had happened. But, absolutely, frogs were falling from the sky.

Some landed in marshes, maybe on their heads. They sang silly songs. They offended poetic sensibilities with ignorant chatter and stubborn opinions. Dionysus was out for his morning constitutional when he heard the cacophony. “Fetch those frogs for me.”

No one could. The frogs had leapt into the air, back into the clouds, loud, louder; oblivious to the noise they made.

Three Things to Carry When Hiking in the Sierras

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She always wore the silver-banded jade ring, hiked in the red shirt scrounged from a garage sale for two dollars. The color attracted hummingbirds that flashed color, buzzed sound, came dangerously close. They thought she was a flower. The shirt’s power, the contrast of tame jade and wild hummingbirds, the contradictions that lived inside her. Sometimes it scared her.

Her knife, an extension of her red-shirted arm, cut bread, spread peanut butter. Like the wild hummingbirds, she hovered on the edge of aggression, starved and looking for something to eat. The jade, it’s calming green, a promise to heal herself.

Third Eye, Third Way

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My third eye started as a zit in the middle of my forehead. It popped. A stream of foul smelling doom scrolls, news stories, and government edicts covered my face. The mess came off in the shower, but the wound required dressing changes for weeks.

I got wise. A diet of cozy mysteries, poetry, eighteenth century women’s novels, and Buddhist philosophy cleared my mind of junk. Zen koans had a cleansing effect, so much so that I started doing yoga and meditation.

My third eye emerged. My brain contained the cosmos. My food for thought: the restful sounds of mantras.

In Retreat

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Lily had a cup of coffee and a bowl of granola after an hour of yoga. The beach was a ten minute walk away. She didn’t gag at the disagreeable smell of rotting algae. She reveled in it. The  sight of plovers hopping along, their beaks poking the wet sand to find breakfast, delighted her. The sunrise shone behind them.

She was beginning to enjoy the solitary days, the solo walks, the freedom to set her own schedule. A month after her partner passed, she had found  a natural habitat where death and life mingled and new mixed with old.

Contemplating the Future with a Roof over My Head.

Photo by Peter Kessler 2025

Men with pitchforks remove the roof. Outside, tarpaper shreds cover the ground around the house.  A few shingles made it down, too. In one short week, our roof will be guaranteed to last for another 30 years.  

I will be 104 when this new roof is old enough to be replaced. I’ll be barely hanging on, more likely gone.

My children plan to keep the house. Such faith. In thirty years this house could stand on a desert or a flood plain. There might be no house. It’s silly to speculate. The future is not guaranteed; but the roof is.