Inca Jay (Draw a Bird Day)
I swim inside a cloud sea, surrounded by color and sound, under a canopy of mossy green. All my senses are awake. Red, yellow and purple orchids emerge from the ferns that line the winding path. Flashes of iridescence appear and disappear in patterns that remember lost dreams. The air is alive.
voices intersect
in layered complexity–
wings flash silver skies
The Inca Jay, like all corvids, is an intelligent and social bird. Native to the cloud forests of the Andes, it has proven adaptable to diverse ecosystems, and so has not yet become endangered like a large number of other cloud forest species have because of deforestation and habitat destruction.
Living in flocks of up to 30 birds, Inca jays have developed complex vocalizations which they use to communicate while foraging. Their diet consists of fruits, insects and small reptiles–they are integral to the control of pests in the forest and also play a key role in seed distribution.
Although breeding pairs are monogamous and mate for life, they practice cooperative breeding, where non-breeding birds assist in raising the group’s chicks.
My haibun was inspired by Frank’s dVerse subject of silver. The International Cloud Atlas classifies the fog of the Cloud Forest as stratus silvagenitus–“created from forest”.
Wooden Doors (Thursday Doors)
a seed becomes a tree becomes
a vessel for holding the stars,
a sanctuary, shelter, home–
the keeper of history, lore–
a portal, mysterious door
that opens incandescent dreams–
enchanted celestial spheres–
kinship, unearthing roots and seams
Muri’s W3 prompt this week was to write a huitan on the theme of seeds. I wanted to use it in my doors post, so I decided to write about trees and feature wooden doors. These are from my archives where, as I have noted before, I have many photos of doors with no context.
I’m pretty sure they all reside within about 20 blocks up or down from where I live though. I’ll have to be on the lookout so I can photo the buildings they are attached to.
And one of my favorite songs.
And don’t forget to visit all the doors at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
Sputnik
This week the Kick-About launches itself into the atmosphere above Earth. And I continue my exploration of shadows.
July 2025
oasis–
inside the heat dome,
cool sweetness–
icy pink
lemonade, watermelon,
beneath backyard trees
I’m a bit late for last week’s Tanka Tuesday prompt from Colleen to incorporate fruit into a poem, but it’s perfect for beginning the month of July. Today promises to be another hot and steamy day, just right for the watermelon I brought home last week from the fruit stand on Broadway. If only I had a forest inside my apartment too…
Once again I’ve made a grid from cutting up some prints I did in my textile design days. I left the third design in the group (the circles in the second image) alone though–it reminds me very much of the beach, which would also be an excellent place to be in this weather.
My boyfriend in 1969 looked a lot like John Sebastian here, sideburns and all. I still see boys with hair like this, but I haven’t seen sideburns on anyone in a long long time.
Hispanic Society of America (Thursday Doors)
My shadow follows nobody’s rules, not even its own. Rules mean nothing to it. What is a shadow? I doubt if it ever considers what its existence means at all.
I can’t define my identity either. My blood is a mixture of many nationalities—none can claim me as their own. And yet. My shadow keeps casting me into one of my many ancestral rivers.
It seems to have a preference for the Spanish-speaking branch, singing to me over and over again in the second language of New York City, the place I came to live at age nineteen and never left. Is that why this city has always felt like home?
Or perhaps it’s because this place offers me a mirror into the entirety of the world contained in my genes–multitudes of intersecting pathways, alive with a kaleidoscope of dreams. A place for my shadow to find lucency.
inside the sweetness
of tropical fruit, colors
of unfiltered light
I went to the Hispanic Society Museum last weekend because I wanted to see Adriana Varejão’s large ceramic plates and it was my last chance to visit them. But of course before I went in, I had to take photos of the surrounding doors.
The museum is located on Audubon Terrace, at 155th Street and Broadway. I lived a few blocks away for many years, and had gone to there with family visiting from out of town, but I hadn’t been there since its renovation.
The complex also houses the main Boricua College campus. “Founded by Puerto Ricans in New York City, Boricua College is a private, not-for-profit liberal arts institution designed to meet the educational needs of Puerto Ricans, Latino-Hispanic, and other students underrepresented in higher education.” (from the college website, here)
The main entrance to Boricua is on Broadway, but these side doors are really beautiful. I’m glad they were preserved along with the original facade.
This is not the main entrance to the museum, but its doors have lovely details as well.
Here’s the main entrance, below, which also has distinctive doors.
Across from the main entrance is a famous sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington, El Cid, which has been embellished with a snake by Adriana Varejão as part of her exhibit.
The main hall inside housed the ceramic plates.
Varejão titled this group of works Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics. The images she created are a tribute to the Amazon forest’s ecology, art, and culture. The backs of the plates are beautiful too.
The upper floor of the museum was closed–I think they were preparing a new exhibit–but there was also a display on the first floor of Iberian ceramics from Archer Huntington’s collection. He founded the Hispanic Society and paid for the building of the complex, which also once housed the American Numismatic and Archeological Society, the American Geographical Society, and the Museum of the American Indian. The other original tenant, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, is still located at Audubon Terrace.
If you want to know more about the detailed and colorful history of Archer Huntington and Audubon Terrace, The Daytonian has a long and photo-filled article, here. In 2017, when he wrote about it, I had been living nearby for quite a few years. The neighborhood was primarily Dominican, and though it was in need of some renovation (and where in NYC is not?), it was a vibrant community, and Audubon Terrace was an integral part of it.
My poem (much revised–time to let it go) is in answer to Bob’s W3 prompt, to respond to his poem using the phrase “nobody’s rules”, along with metaphor, to “explore themes of persistence, belonging, growth, or survival”. We are all looking for a place to belong.
And don’t forget to explore all the doors at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
The Hispanic Society Museum website is here. And you can read more about Adriana Varejão and her work here.
Points of View (Thursday Doors)
my relationship
with my indoor plants varies–
it always depends
I can’t figure it
out—some thrive, some don’t–some will
not commit themselves
I envy back yards,
roof decks, terraces—subject
to the weather’s whims
the burden of care
is shared–along with a sun
for lazy basking
The view out my front windows is of roofs. I’m on the 8th floor and across the street are a row of brownstones. Some of them have roof gardens. Before this year, I never saw anyone using most of them, but for some reason their current residents have spruced them up and are often outside.
I admit I’m envious. Some larger building have roof decks–I lived in one briefly–but mine does not.
This one used to look particularly sad, but it now has lights and plants and is in constant use. It’s a rental building, with a terrace on the back side that belongs to a different apartment. Both have tiny one bedrooms on the floor below, with a staircase to the roof.
This is a private house which may or may not rent out a garden apartment–I couldn’t really tell from what I found out online. It last sold in 2016 for 8 million dollars, and looks like it was completely renovated at that time. I guess that’s why it looks like the fanciest of the three.
Another rental building, which also appears to have a terrace at the back. I couldn’t find any floor plans but it supposedly has 10 units, so the back may also belong to a different apartment.
Looking out the window the other direction is a deck that gets used all the time. It has a flat screen TV on the wall for evening viewing. They haven’t had much chance to use it yet this year, but maybe the rain will stop soon. This brownstone is a co-op. There’s a 2 bedroom apartment on the floor below, and the apartment with its deck last sold for $1,700,000 in 2020. I had always thought it was a communal deck used by the entire building, so that was an interesting thing to discover.
I chose to focus on rooftops this week because Dan Antion, who hosts Thursday Doors, also hosts a weekly photo prompt, and this week’s theme is Photos taken from above.
My poem is for Selma’s Tanka Tuesday Prompt this week to write a rensaku about relationships.
And a couple more views from above for CFFC, taken from the second row from the top of the stadium.
We went to Pride Night last week at Citi Field. Mr. and Mrs. Met were of course in attendance. The Mets lost (something they seem to be doing with regularity lately), but the place was packed and everyone had a great time, singing and dancing at the slightest provocation. Long after Francisco Lindor stepped up to the plate, the entire stadium was still singing “My Girl”.
Abstract Expressions
This week’s Kick-About takes it’s inspiration from the varied work of Abstract Expressionist Lee Krasner.
Maintenance (Thursday Doors)
Curiosity never seems to need repairs—
not like cars, or careers, which always do.
And who could fix surprise? Who would try?
A therapist often needs to be discarded–
and also, frequently, those rainy afternoons
that stretch endlessly into artificial lists
strewn with folly-filled patterns and pauses
that have no destination, only questions—
And then consider buildings, houses–
which seems perpetually to require repair—
doors, windows, roof, floors, walls—call the plumber!
But it is far more difficult to mend a home.
The thread that holds a home together
is fragile—it needs constant attention,
or it will fray, lose its connection—
searching for an open hand, a kind heart.
A few weeks ago I talked about all the scaffolding on the streets of NYC. I decided yesterday to record some of them I passed while walking to and from the grocery store. The top door is from a building where the scaffolding has just come down. The ground floor has been completely renovated by a photography and printing business, and they are just putting the finishing touches on the interior.
One of the local schools is having exterior work done–part of the playground is closed off by fences, gates, and scaffolding. And the apartment building across the street also seems to be having extensive work done, as part of the street is closed off.
Some scaffolds and buildings are large, some small. Some cover the entire building, some just the ground floor.
This sculpture garden is new–it’s on the crosswalk between traffic and the bike lane on Amsterdam Avenue.
Apple Bank has been scaffolded for awhile, but I think I have some photos of it from before, which I will try to find. It has some great doors. There are apartments in the upper floors.
This building on Broadway has some restaurants on the ground floor. The scaffolding makes it easy to eat outside even if it rains.
Two more scaffolds I passed on my way home.
Kim’s W3 prompt this week was to write a poem and then revise it after plugging it into the N+7 Surrealist Poetry Generator. About half the nouns in my original poem were evidently not in its dictionary, so I didn’t get that many new words to work with. I consulted the thesaurus and managed to come up with enough nouns to satisfy its constraints.
All my writing is endlessly revised, up to and even past the point I press “post”. In this case, the first stanza owes more to the N+7 suggestions than the second, but both stanzas are pretty much unrecognizable from what I originally wrote.
And of course the poem itself is only peripherally connected to this week’s doors. But if you try hard enough to see it they have a kind of relationship.
Don’t forget to check out all the doors at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
And I can never get enough Bonnie Raitt.
Blue Footed Booby (Draw a Bird Day)
Blue feet dance
quixotic love songs
sky pointing
The blue footed booby lives on the western coasts of Central and South America. Its name comes from the Spanish word for foolish or clown-like, bobo, and its vivid turquoise blue feet.
Boobies are curious and tame around people, and many of the photos I found showed them seemingly posing somewhat goofily for the camera. They are often photographed doing their mating dance, in which they flaunt their blue feet, and raise wings, tail, and beak to the sky–“sky pointing”.
Boobies are monogamous and mated birds can recognize each other by their calls. They lay their eggs on bare ground, nesting in large colonies. Half of the breeding pairs nest on the Galapagos Islands.
The female turns constantly to face the sun while sitting on the eggs, forming a circle of guano around them. This helps disguise the eggs from predators such as hawks. Boobies are quite passive when confronted by potential threats.
Outside of breeding season, boobies spend almost all their time in the water. Agile flyers, they plunge-dive from heights up to 100 feet to capture and eat their prey underwater. Because of this behavior, they breathe through the corners of their mouth–their nostrils are permanently closed. Their diet consists almost entirely of fish.
Their yellow eyes are oriented to the front, giving them excellent binocular vision.
The present booby population is around 6,000 and declining, mainly because of the decline in fish populations, especially sardines.
method two madness 
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