Lake Ketchum Art Galleries
Life On a Lake
Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living
280
My friend, Anna Dwart, writes
in response to the spontaneous poem of mine from Blog 278:
As though this were a chess game, which perhaps it is. A nice bit of poesy, all the same.
She lives by the sea in South Carolina, where she teaches Freshman English. To exchange poems in each other's style is an old Zen trick, and our mutual friend, Robert Sund, did this often and charmingly. Perhaps we can start a trend. . . .
Cormorant on a snag
279
I've always found the cormorant a rather sinister and snooty character, the way he always has his nose up in the air. But he has beautiful lines and I have been trying to draw them, without much success. Hardly a straight line to him anywhere, but the curves are so graceful and complete.
He takes up positions on lake residents docks, though he really loves an old piling. And when flushed, alarmed, he flies off very low to the water, often touching it, in the manner of a skipping stone. And then he is airborne. He may settle back to the surface of the lake and more fishing, or he may wing off a considerable distance.
In the air, say fifty feet off the ground or water, he is a slim silhouette, very air dynamic, and flaps away at a surprisingly fast clip. A pair or more of them fly in tight formation, often resembling on a greatly reduced scale the jet fighter based at nearby Whidbey Island.
Oh, yes. When a cormorant or two lands on your dock, he usually leaves behind his calling card in the form of excrement. Then you can see how successful a fisher he is.
Or she, as the case may be.
278
nearly touching water
Robert Arnold, Editor
rcarnold@direcway.com