Glass of Blue and Icy White

Granger Hall Library

Stained Glass Window in Grainger Hall Library

This is a small part of a large stained glass window in the business building on the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus.  I was trying to find something to photograph that didn’t send a chill of cold through my body, and thought I’d found the perfect subject when I saw this stained glass window. Once the photograph popped up on my monitor, however, I realized the blues and whites reminded me of the icy outside I was trying to ignore. At least I was warm while I was shooting since I took the photo from the interior of the library.

Watching all the students studying, makes me glad that that part of my life is in the distant past. I still love to learn, but I like to do it on my own schedule and pick my subjects with due consideration.

Bald Eagle Revival

Roosting Near the Mississippi River

Roosting in the Bluffs Near the Mississippi River

The Bald Eagles appear to be alive and well. A far cry from their story only a few decades ago, when America’s symbolic bird was on the Endangered Species list.

I went to observe the eagles wintering along the Mississippi River. They tend to hang out around the locks and dams which have areas of open water, even during the winter’s coldest months. And open water, to an eagle, indicates the diner in open.

I spent parts of last Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Lock and Dam # 11 near Dubuque, Iowa. Saturday was overcast and cold (6˚F) but the eagles were quite active because it had warmed about 20˚ in the last two days. They thought it plenty warm enough to do a few aerial dives into the river and they were successful in their fishing attempts.  I must have seen a dozen birds in the hour I was there.

On Sunday the clouds cleared for a few hours, and I was actually able to get a shot of this eagle with blue skies in the background. But the aerialists were gone, and I had to settle for seeing maybe three or four birds high in the trees along the bluffs.

I spoke to a member of the Army Corps of Engineers who oversees the dam, and also to a member of the local Audubon Society who keeps his eyes on the eagles. They both told me they’ve been doing eagle counts since the 1970s. Thirty years ago, in a counting trip from one dam to the next, in a span of perhaps 20 miles, they saw a total of one Bald Eagle. This year, same span, same time of year, and they reported seeing more than 200.

Soaring above the Mississippi

Soaring above the Mississippi

Yes, quite a comeback. It seems the Bald Eagles are doing quite well.

The 2009 Inaugural Poet and Poem

Reading the Inaugural Poem

During the Reading of the Inaugural Poem

(Photo is a TV shot from ABC News.)

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is a professor at Yale University and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University this year. She was chosen to write and deliver the inaugural poem, only the fourth poet to have this privilege.

Robert Frost recited his poem, one he had written in the 1940s, The Gift Outright , at the 1961 Inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Maya Angelou wrote and read The Rock Cries Out to Us Today at Bill Clinton’s Inauguration in 1993, and Miller Williams wrote and read Of History and Hope at Clinton’s Second Inauguration in 1997.

This is a transcription of Alexander’s poem, delivered at Barack Obama’s Inauguration, January 20, 2009. The poem will be available in a commemorative chapbook by Graywolf Press on February 6th.

It’s an interesting study to read the four inaugural poems as a collection. (Interesting, too, that two of the poems have the word bramble in them. Bramble? Not your ordinary kind of word, but definitely a poet’s word.)

Praise Song for the Day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

The New President and First Lady, in Tune with the Nation

Singing the National Anthem

Singing the National Anthem

Of course, I did not go to the Inauguration. I watched it at home on the television, but I had to take photos of the big event anyway. So this photo comes off the ABC News feed from the television. I must admit though, I’m a bit pleased that I managed a photo that looks as if it’s been double exposed.

The President and his wife are singing the National Anthem, just minutes after Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

Obama Shines during Inaugural Speech

American Flag - A Starburst in the Sunlight

Obama's American Flag Lapel Pin - A Starburst in the Sunlight

Thanks to television broadcasting, I felt like I was almost at the Inauguration. Wow, how the American Flag lapel pin gleamed in the sun.

And I cried. I’ve seen a lot of presidents come, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite this way upon seeing a new leader take office.

Hope. Such audacious hope!