Echoes in a Hollow Space

The hawk rides thermals
above the wetland–glad he’s
left my bird feeder.







*For a definition of what constitutes haiku, tanka, and cinquains, and for an explanation of this poetry project, go here.
*To see all the poems in one place go here.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

These guys have been at the bird feeder all week.

They have one of the strangest calls I’ve ever heard: like a baby dragon. Or a hawk on acid.

It’s quite unnerved the wild finches, sparrows, et al. All the little birds have kept away from the feeders since they’ve been around. I have to think it’s that call that’s frightening them—too much like the hawk, I suspect. But no worries because these blackbirds are seed eaters.

They come up from the marshland less than a half-mile from our house, but I’ve never seen them here before. Quite a wonderful surprise to look out the window and see those yellow heads.

The beautiful singer from last year has returned, too.

The peach tree is absolutely laden with fruit, fecund branches hanging so heavy I’ve had to prop them up with a ladder. We’ll be having peach cobbler very soon now. The entire neighborhood is tingling with anticipation.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

The cantalilies were particularly lovely this morning—near six feet tall, some of them, and loads of bright orange blooms. They, at least, like the current humidity. The bougainvillea is looking fuller now, too. It was lush and gorgeous in spring; every evening when the sun sank low the trellis blazed with a glory of crimson-reflected light. It had died back a bit, but the humidity seems to have brought it back.

Today's view out the front window was further enhanced by a flock of red-winged blackbirds, clambering over the crimsoned trellis to get to the bird feeders there. We only see them for a few weeks while they're migrating south-north or vice versa. The Ballona wetlands are less than a half-mile down the hill from us so we do tend to get some interesting birds migrating in and out.

In the spring we had a kestrel nesting in one of the big trees on the other side of the back fence. We heard the piping call of the bird and its young for weeks. I love kestrels—such tiny predators. I love all hawks. I know they prey on the little birds that use our feeders, but they're just doing what comes naturally, so I can't blame them. And they are so beautiful, all hawks: their sleekness, their dignity, the utter stillness of their eyes. Is there anything calmer than the eyes of a predator in repose?

I'm not against progress. I don't think things were better in the old days; I believe science has given us the potential to live stronger, longer, healthier lives. Being human, of course, we don't always avail ourselves of that opportunity. We reserve the right to do as we will, despite the blandishments of cancer researchers, nutritionists, and other preachers of the Word. No, progress isn't the culprit. But I don't necessarily think development is always progress. Often development is more about greed and vulgar pride.

The developers couldn't wait to get their hands on one of the last stretches of unexploited land along the Southern California coast—the Ballona Creek wetlands near Marina del Rey. It'd been protected through most of the high-development decades of the 20th Century by crazy ol' Howard Hughes, who owned a vast chunk of it. He preserved it because he'd built Hughes Aircraft on the part of the property east of Lincoln Boulevard. He liked to fly experimental things off his runway there, and kept the lands vacant on the west side of Lincoln almost down to the beach at Playa del Rey in case he crashed one of those somethings. Plus, he was a stubborn old coot. Long after he'd stop flying things, he held onto the land despite developers salivating and the urging of the money men to sell it off. Maybe because they insisted, but who knows? Howard moved in mysterious ways.

Then Howard died and the developers saw their golden moment come at last. They purchased the land from the Hughes estate, planning to rip it all up and build a shiny new planned richfolk community called Playa Vista. Only the dedicated and persistent yelling of environmentalists slowed that process down. The County of Los Angeles owned some of the parcels on both the west and east sides of Lincoln. Under pressure from environmentalists, the County got the developers to swap some of the western parcels for the eastern ones. The developers could put in their shiny new Playa Vista in the east, the wetlands would be preserved in the west. Everyone huzzahed—a rare victory for the forces of conservation.

But every silver cloud has a dark lining. What the County didn't tell the environmentalists, at least not at first, was that they planned to "improve" the wetlands.

It used to be when you'd drive up that stretch of Lincoln, about a mile from Los Angeles International Airport, you'd see the incongruous sight of wildlife in the middle of a sprawling city: wild ducks, pelicans, hawks of many varieties constantly circling in the sky, a plethora of doves, songbirds, finches, and most miraculously to me, herons. I mean, where else could you drive through the heart of an urban landscape, just a few miles from a major airport, and suddenly be in the heart of the country?

The parts of the city directly before and directly after the wetlands are especially blighted pieces of urban landscape—chock-a-block with storefronts and parking lots. But you passed under the bridge from Culver Boulevard to Jefferson and magic happened. You were suddenly on the bridge over the vast flood control of the Los Angeles River and open fields and wild things were just on the other side. It only lasted a couple of blocks, this countryside, but there it was, a miracle of survival. In inclement weather, the fog hugged the ground like a blanket, in the springtime the fields blazed with wildflowers: yellow and orange, pale blue, purple and white. And the view from the bluffs was clear all the way to the sea, a vast wave of green in springtime, golden in the fall and winter.

Two blocks, in the heart of the city: changed now. My favorite hillock, rising up to hold the Culver Boulevard bridge in place, a glorious crown of orange and yellow in the spring: cement now. Buildings line the whole eastern side of Lincoln where once farmers planted crops. One particularly hideous nouveau apartment block looks rather more like a prison or a mental institution than someplace to live.

Since they started grading and dredging and making nice in the wetlands, I haven't seen much wildlife. The doves and finches are ubiquitous everywhere in the city, so they haven't gone. I still see wild ducks flying overhead now and then, on their way to roost elsewhere. There is the occasional pelican, but I almost never see hawks circling in the sky, waiting for an intemperate mouse to show itself far below and provide it with supper. And I haven't seen a heron in years.

But the County has made lots of sparkling pathways for the humans who inhabit the Playa Vista development to tourist through the wetlands on; the County made nice-nice so the people who have live in McMansions on the bluffs above the wetlands don't have to look down on that tatty, chaotic mess that teemed life. They're currently grading the last bit of undeveloped bluff--no more poor folk allowed up there for a view to the sea. They're putting up more of what architectural writer Susan Susanka calls Starter Castles, perched precariously on the hillside on stilts. And when the next powerful earthquake jiggles through those bluffs and turns that beachy soil bubbly with liquefaction, I expect the richfolk will be imposing themselves upon the wetlands below in yet another way.

Everything changes. Nothing remains the same. The world is an illusion. But some illusions nourish the soul. Others don't look much like progress to me.