Ophidian

Today is World Poetry Day! We’re celebrating with a poem about the migratory hermit thrush, written by naturalist John Burroughs in 1900. 

In the primal forest’s hush

Listen! … the hermit thrush!

Now he winds his silver horn,

While the dew is on the morn.

Voicing in its lucid tones

All the grey old forest owns.

Voicing joy in summer days,

And solitude in leafy ways,

Voicing love where none molest

And minstrels pride in mate and nest.

Or, pausing in the twilight dim,

Hear him lift his evening hymn,

Hear it ring from mountain crest

Pulsing out from speckled breast.

Found a super cheap flight to Maui last weekend, so I rented a car and explored the entire island solo. I spent the weekend sleeping in the car, waking up at sunrise, driving the entire coast, photographing, hiking, and eating the local cuisine. I can’t say there have been many other times where I felt this alive in my whole life.

Paul Bennett