Happy Birthday Carolee and Paul

This past summer I set up a drip, water slowly dripping into a pool.

Pool? Our drip holds about about two cups of water. Originally I set it up only because I had a boulder with a natural cavity. I looked at it for two or three years, imagining a little fountain with hole bored through the bottom. That never happened. This past summer I set up a thin hose fished through a bamboo 'faucet' to drip one drop at a time into the stone cup. The small birds love it.  

But first a Canada Warbler for my Canadian friends, who by random chance, both have their birthdays today. Two of the greatest birders and best friends a man could ask for.  

Pencil in another Oakwood Warbler Spring.  Be well, stay safe.

- Gunnar

Guy Clark - Let it Roll

I read the obits every day. Just to be certain. 
I love a really good obit, but so many are unimaginative. They talk around the fact that he/she/or it "died".  They "passed away" - like they sneaked off when we weren't looking. Or she ran off, "She went to be with the Lord."  Or her late husband. Or her French poodle Fido. 

This was recorded when Guy Clark was on the down side of cancer. His pause and sigh before, "... so he died" is a bit poignant. At about 2:50 Verlon Thompson's joins in, two friends joined at the hip for decades. 

He's a wino, tried and true.
Done about everything there is to do.
He worked on freighters, he worked in bars.
He worked on farms, 'n he worked on cars.

It was white port, that put that look in his eye
That grown men get when they need to cry
And he sat down on the curb to rest
And his head just fell down on his chest

He said "Every single day it gets
A little bit harder to handle and yet"
And he lost the thread and his mind got cluttered
And the words just rolled off down in the gutter

Well he was elevator man in a cheap hotel
In exchange for the rent on a one room cell
He's old in years beyond his time
Thanks to the world, and the white Port wine

So he says "Son, " he always called me son
He said, "Life for you has just begun"
And he told me a story that I heard before
How he fell in love with a Dallas whore

Well he could cut through the years to the very night
When it ended, in a whore house fight
And she turned his last proposal down
In favor of being a girl about town

Now it's been seventeen years right in line
And he ain't been straight none of the time
Too many days of fightin' the weather
And too many nights of not being together

So he died

Well when they went through his personal affects
In among the stubs from the welfare checks
Was a crumblin' picture of a girl in a door
An address in Dallas, and nothin' more

The welfare people provided the priest
A couple from the mission down the street
Sang Amazing Grace, and no one cried
'Cept some woman in black, way off to the side

We all left and she was standing there
Black veil covering her silver hair
And 'ol One-Eyed John said her name was Alice
And she used to be a whore in Dallas

Let him roar, Lord let him roll
Bet he's gone to Dallas Rest his soul
Lord, let him roll, Lord let him roar
He always said that heaven

Was just a Dallas whore.

The Owl of Athena

 ... spreads its wings only at the dusk.

It does not seem fair that most of us only acquire the wisdom to live a really full life as it is ebbing - just when it is starting to get really good we can see the sunset on the horizon. Tempus fucking fugit.

- G.