tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-305747752008-10-10T15:56:27.722-07:00BellumLettersMichelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comBlogger376125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-45405704746881184682008-10-10T15:47:00.001-07:002008-10-10T15:56:27.734-07:00

noticing fewer animals lately, and worrying that some effort has been made to reduce their numbers. The squirrels seem scarce, and I haven't seen a skunk for weeks. I hear the killdeer at night, and I've seen one or two in the field. The hummingbirds continue to frequent the feeder. I will go to the birds in a few hours, which will be nice. I go to the bird center on friday evenings, and though

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-61651935516196390732008-09-29T19:27:00.000-07:002008-09-29T23:42:13.086-07:00

I'm witching in, thin as a claw, coning furled wings, in-bred switch swinging like a bitch in green grass digging holes as robots mend their irons, numbers grid-rigged, pegged to blowsy under-torn documents half-fed to swans with necks of lead, fake swans but happy ones, their red feet marshed in mud-tar as real flies buzz blue with laziness

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-11867276725678828922008-09-21T19:15:00.001-07:002008-09-21T19:15:58.400-07:00

the dreams have been sugary shifty and many times I am angry, yelling and yelling and yelling.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-36528539223570308122008-09-21T19:11:00.000-07:002008-09-21T19:15:20.225-07:00

things go crash, I'm absent, reading trash, thumbing thru obsolete yellow books, wondering what scene we're in, when the dumpsters turn gold and its all autumn again, or else sugar in cement to catch fox paws or ways to track oneself. One night I was here, the next I was there. The rubber band in my mind goes snap.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-13286088696224250582008-09-15T10:54:00.000-07:002008-09-15T11:00:17.312-07:00

all I see in the bookstore are decapitated women or naked women skin especially seems to sell spell books and it makes me want to spit nails ETA: "it's a club, and you're not in it."

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-23281922391883894332008-09-10T23:24:00.001-07:002008-09-10T23:37:38.630-07:00

I love threads and scissors. I love to pull thread off the spool and to make these little matted nests of color. I like how the thread is soft, how from a distance it looks like hair or an insect or stems. Mist in the morning and walking through the air is like a very shallow swim. No rain, only humidity that comes in a gray hug. The sand at the beach is higher. It is high enough to cover the

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-76285591893237832672008-09-08T20:28:00.000-07:002008-09-10T23:23:57.727-07:00

like when I wake up and when I go to bed. how much time I spend outside. what and when I eat. everything is different. several days have passed, and I have not seen the skunk in the yard. I saw a small green frog who lives in the mint. I've become more tolerant of moths, who I understand are important pollinators. I planted geraniums. I went to the bird center and fed pelicans. One had a wound

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-18063397832463198922008-08-31T22:48:00.000-07:002008-08-31T23:05:21.144-07:00

It's my favorite. The long days make me feel safe; for hours everything is gold. We were moving for so long and now we are resting. But it all feels like running in place. The other night -- it was dusk, really...the gold-silver light -- we saw a fox in the field near our house. It was a red fox but it looked silver. It was traced by light. The ears were pointed, the tail held straight out

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-50098887086441028192008-08-24T20:04:00.000-07:002008-08-25T09:16:47.883-07:00

I love Otoliths, and I'm super-stoked to have some poems there.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-68439020441213020042008-08-24T19:16:00.001-07:002008-08-24T19:18:26.667-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-46636826032305562632008-08-13T11:30:00.000-07:002008-08-13T11:32:57.955-07:00

is how we live, sleeping inside skin. I want wheels turning only in, around. My clothes, they get thin as I get worn. We were looking out for tracing clouds, fin slid under wing. We were without beds. I nurtured sounds. We came to land on land like rest. We fluttered full to nest only sticks built into temporary chambers. In all this moving I remember how much I love.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-12526220674383394222008-08-05T09:21:00.000-07:002008-08-05T09:22:01.141-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-72262951389714581792008-08-03T15:39:00.000-07:002008-08-03T15:52:08.131-07:00

So it was really ridiculous to think that the night heron wouldn't come back. After all, birds fly for thousands of miles. They have that whole bird's eye view of the world. While it might be a challenge for a human to find his or her way back to place after a disorienting 10 mile car ride, it is not difficult for a bird. This is a picture of a "cotillion" of terns. I took it last week at

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-24989816844928026262008-07-26T01:02:00.000-07:002008-07-26T01:03:35.981-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-40264576898651736972008-07-24T16:45:00.000-07:002008-07-24T17:01:14.577-07:00

Many of these pretty, hungry waders live near the seabird pond. They come to beg for fish. They are elegant and interesting animals, but lately they have become sort of a nuisance. J isn't sure when or from where they came. Perhaps, she says, they are former patients. During the spring there are many baby night herons. They get released at Goleta Beach, but perhaps these same birds make their way

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-91241532952514161212008-07-19T21:32:00.001-07:002008-07-19T21:34:18.994-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-9808546078409187162008-07-19T15:17:00.001-07:002008-07-19T15:17:30.675-07:00

I want a dog so bad.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-16622124608727076102008-07-11T10:47:00.000-07:002008-07-11T19:51:54.775-07:00

The word "pelican" is an old English word, and it is probably related to the Greek word for axe:"pelekys." This is likely because of the shape of their beaks. Up close, I am always surprised by how the beaks are worn, how the layers of keratin shed, how the tip of the upper bill (the maxilla) is curved and sharp, and the entire anatomy of the beak reminds me most of a pair of tongs. I am most

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-1137323646833715892008-07-06T23:09:00.000-07:002008-07-06T23:13:25.896-07:00

We're back home. The fire is still flickering in the mountains, but now it's just a few smoky glows and not the gleaming lines that seemed open like a pair of glisten-jaws. Everything is ashed, but the skunk was out with her little white and black plume just like usual.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-10617788149318696292008-07-02T18:54:00.001-07:002008-07-03T00:27:29.660-07:00

The mountain above our house is on fire. This morning it was a powdery smoke bloom among the chaparral; this afternoon it was darker, thicker. By nightfall the widened line was like an open horse shoe. At sunset, the ash in the air seemed to glitter; the sun light slid under the smoke. The sun seemed to outline the smoke-clouds in rainbows. It's a type of pretty that hurts. Tonight we are

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-14591724015534497362008-06-30T17:21:00.000-07:002008-06-30T17:24:15.851-07:00

It is hard to describe: when the window is down and the sun comes up, following a pelican into a shed filled with orange tractors and dirt bones, being watched by men as the wings close in, the tiny mites that cover the body. In eyes flicker fins. I'm looking at you. Glass trigger in the face, waiting for me to open my mouth. If we were braver we'd be scared of you. As it is, we isn't.

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-23613481101585038992008-06-24T21:51:00.000-07:002008-06-24T21:52:25.767-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-45078452609511363892008-06-17T15:30:00.000-07:002008-06-17T15:50:00.245-07:00

I am now convinced that the bird that arrived at the door was a sooty shearwater. SB county birders are reporting swarms of them off the coast. Last Monday, three days before my bird arrived, there were reportedly in numbers exceeding 10K between Goleta pier and campus point. Our house is just a short distance away, so now I think a straggler juvenile must have crash landed at our house. Sooty

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-76233427653748714082008-06-17T00:56:00.000-07:002008-06-17T00:59:23.149-07:00

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30574775.post-62602190385687746652008-06-15T21:57:00.000-07:002008-06-16T00:33:55.317-07:00

Things have been weird. On Thursday morning a strange bird came and knocked on the door. For real. I saw it on the patio through a gap in the curtains. It's body was sooty and dark. At first I thought it was a crow. Then I saw the black webbed feet and the sharp curved beak. I thought then that it was a cormorant -- a juvenile. Often the juveniles look dark gray. Adult cormorants have glossy and

Michelle Detoriehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16678218271885988491noreply@blogger.com