Almanack Contributor Laura Bellinger

I am a retired teacher who enjoys the outdoors, especially the Adirondacks. My parents took us camping when we were kids, then we attended 4-H Camp in Speculator (a former CCC camp). As an adult, I served on the Camp board for 8 years. I went to my friend's camp in Bloomingdale (Saranac) for 10 years. We enjoyed cross country skiing, canoeing, fishing, snowshoeing, etc. I still hike, cross country and downhill ski, snowshoe. I bicycle and ride a Harley. I play the organ at a 300 year old church.


Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Nova Scotia Wildfires 2023

hazy sky

Must beauty always come with pain?
Not even Mother Earth is spared.
The French say “il faut souffrir pour être belle”
“one must suffer to be beautiful”.

The meteorologists report that Canada’s blaze
may create an extraordinary sunset
from the poisonous haze.

The death of a forest combines with the end of a day.
A terrible funeral pyre from which smoke chokes the air.
Yet Nature rises like the Phoenix,
the sinking Sun takes a deep, brave, gasping breath,
exhaling one last crimson burst,
creating a sky too awesome to bear.

 

Photo: Hazy sky in Vermontville due to wildfires. Photo by Melissa Hart


Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Spring visitor

bear
The dinner guest arrived late.
No invitation.
No reservations.
Alone.

Just newly awake,
belly growling with
a devastating hunger.

Drawn here
for a free meal,
easy,
high in calories.
A good deal.

He almost got away with it
but for a soft noise.

3 a.m. is the witching hour.
I look out.
Is he even real?
or a supernatural specter?

To Native Americans
he is a spiritual guide.
To Robert Frost
a being that roams wide:
“The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.”

Ursa Major dominates the spring skies.
The Big Dipper, a guide.
Under the stars, my bruin friend,
I whisper “safely abide.”

I will listen to the DEC officers
and take the bird feeders
down until fall.
When you next again
“rock a boulder on the wall”.

 

Black bear in Raquette Lake. Photo by Jeff Nadler, archive photo.



Conditions
Conditions

The Adirondack Almanack

The Adirondack Almanack is a public forum dedicated to promoting and discussing current events, history, arts, nature and outdoor recreation and other topics of interest to the Adirondacks and its communities

We publish commentary and opinion pieces from voluntary contributors, as well as news updates and event notices from area organizations. Contributors include veteran local writers, historians, naturalists, and outdoor enthusiasts from around the Adirondack region. The information, views and opinions expressed by these various authors are not necessarily those of the Adirondack Almanack or its publisher, the Adirondack Explorer.

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