A Morning at Fort Flagler

Chances to get outside have been few and far lately. With clearing forecast, Leslie and I set out for Ft. Flagler and Port Townsend on a recent Sunday. As it turned out we saw very little (like none) sunshine and were greeted by the highest tide I’ve ever seen there.

We couldn’t figure out what all the birds were on the lawn across from the campground. It turned out to be shorebirds, like this Black-Bellied Plover in winter plumage

and Sanderlings in Winter plumage.

I’ve seen both at Flagler many times, but never foraging on the lawn. It wasn’t until we reached the end of the spit, more than a half hour later that we realized that there really wasn’t any “shore” to forage.

One of the few good things about that was that this is probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to the Brant geese.

Although we didn’t see as many Harlequin Ducks as we usually do, I did see a couple and with a little Lightroom enhancing, the male’s plumage is almost recognizable.

A Sun Break

It may officially be Fall but the constant rain here in the Puget Sound Area suggests it’s really winter. So, when we finally got some sunshine on a day when we didn’t have any obligations, we headed out early to Theler’s Wetland. Unfortunately, we didn’t see many birds, and, worst of all, it was so foggy that the shots I did get were awful.

When we went to Port Orchard to see what was in the Marina, the sun finally broke through but the many yachts had driven most of the birds out of the marina. We had to wait until the end of the dock to get some shots. As it turned out, they were well worth the wait, reminded me why I enjoy taking shots of birds.

This little Horned Grebe was the first bird I spotted,

but this Cormorant seemed equally willing to pose.

There were also large numbers of Goldeneye near the end of the dock.

The light was actually bright enough that I managed to get a relatively good shot of a Goldeneye taking off.

Selected Haiku: Masaoka Shiki

I’ve long been an admirer of good Haiku, as opposed to much of what passes for Haiku. So, it was a no-brainer for me to order the recently published A House By Itself: Selected Haiku: Masaoka Shikafter reading that Shiki’s ideas have dominated modern haiku since his death. My experience with Haiku has generally been limited to the Classical masters, so I was eager to see how modern Haiku differs from classical haiku.

The opening essay, which takes up nearly a third of the book, certainly gave me a better understanding of Haiku than I’ve had in the past. I was surprised to read that Shiki’s “great contribution to haiku was sharei, or ‘sketching from life,” this in contradistinction to the prevalent subjective, imaginative, even fanciful approach to composition.” This came as a bit of shock to me as I’ll have to admit that I always assumed this was true of Classical haiku. I always thought that a particular scene directly inspired the haiku. For Shiki, “Most important was fidelity of the poet to Nature, i.e., reality. To be shunned was empty imagination divorced from observable reality.”

Later Masaoka introduced the concept of “selective realism” where the poet’s individual taste/creativity determines what part of the scene is described. He continued to refine his concept with the introduction of “makoto, or ‘poetic truthfulness.’” “The poet is to experience his inner life as simply and sincerely as he is to observe nature…” Finally, I find his attempt to fuse poetry and painting particularly appealing.

I only wish more of his haiku had been included in the collection. There’s only about a hundred of them included in the collection, but since I liked so many of them I’m assuming that the translators, John Brandi and Noriko Kawasaki Martines, picked what they considered the best poems for this selection.

It seems remarkable that I can so clearly relate to an author who wrote nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. I can easily imagine that he was hiking Sunrise on Mt. Rainier when he wrote:

After the fog clears
mountains
ten steps away

This haiku summarizes my frustration trying to capture the ocean in a photograph.

Oceans and mountains
way beyond
seventeen syllables.

These leaves
how they hold on
to the passing autumn.

Could easily have been written in my backyard where these maple leaves are still hanging on.