“White Wings.”
Common white egret by Neal Maine, PacificLight Images.
November, 2018
Sunset Beach, Oregon
Read more about Herons and Egrets | Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
https://myodfw.com/wildlife-viewing/species/-herons-and-egrets
After a thirty-year career as an award-winning biology teacher at Seaside High School, Neal Maine became the first executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, which he co-founded in 1986. Since his retirement from the land trust in 2010, he has pursued his passion for nature photography through PacificLight Images, which is dedicated to raising awareness of coastal ecology and the wildlife with whom we share the region’s estuaries, freshwater wetlands and forests. The photography centers around coastal and Columbia River landscape, ecology and the rich estuary habitat with the surrounding wetlands and forest systems. Neal Maine focuses his imagery on exploring wildlife in the context of its habitat.
To view more of Neal Maine’s photography, please go to the artists tab/ Neal Maine http://www.fairweatherhouseandgallery.com
100% of profits from Neal Maine’s photography are donated to NCLC, North Coast Land Conservancy.
Q: “Would it be possible to share the poem that Kim Stafford dedicated to NCLC as a story for the “All is Calm” Art Walk at Fairweather’s?”
A: “We’re so glad you were touched and appreciate you wanting to share it with others,” NCLC/North Coast Land Conservancy.
For more about NCLC go to https://nclctrust.org/ North Coast Land Conservancy. Helping to conserve Oregon’s coastal lands, forever.
Mother Mountain
Heaven, the old proverb says, is at your mother’s feet—
and here we are at the forest hem watching fog climb
through trees toward the queen’s crown peak,
hidden harvester of rain, alpine realm of silence
and starlight, home to bear cave, elk wallow,
cougar range, rare flowers brimming from persistent
seeps, trees shaggy with centuries on their blue ridge
where sister peaks layer shadows far.
So close the gate, let the alders usher in young fir,
cedar, hemlock, spruce, let the road become a path
for pilgrims seeking myriad mysteries, magic
not yet known, the black petaltail dragonfly
born from fog-fed, moss-footed mud to soar
before our eyes from the time of legends.
Here we dwell at our mother’s feet, blessed
with bounty we protect, home to wild origin.
Kim Stafford
Kim Stafford named Oregon Poet Laureate | Oregon Cultural Trust
Please note another Fairweather blog post next week will present the entire back story to the poem created by Kim Stafford for NCLC with a letter by Katie Voelke, executive director.