Reading Update

Book #93 of the year was More Than You Can Imagine: What God Does When You Trust Him, by Susie Larson. I heard the author on a podcast and had to preorder the book because I liked what she said so much. This book was very good and I'll probably reread it since I went through it pretty fast the first time.

 

Book #94 was Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood. This was strange, but oddly compelling.

 

Book #95 was Trophic Cascade, by Camille Dungy. I don't read as much poetry as I used to, but this was good. Again, I'll need to reread it.

 

Book #96 was C'était ça ou mourir, by Thélyson Orélien. I want so much to believe that Orélien didn't use AI to write this, and maybe he didn't. I'm glad I read it because it's a story that needs to be told. Google if you haven't heard about all the controversy with this book.

 

Book #97 was a book club pick, The Pirate Queen, by Ariel Lawhon. I enjoyed it very much, and learned some about Irish history. Grace, the pirate queen, is an unforgettable character.

 

Book #98 was Exit Party, by Emily St. John Mandel. There's a lot of familiar territory here for this author: post-apocalyptic, time (or at least dimension) travel, making a life in horrendous circumstances. I enjoyed it. 

Poetry Friday and Birdtober Day 16: Blue-capped Cordonbleu

We have a cordonbleu species where I live, but it's the Red-cheeked Cordonbleu. It's the same shade of pale blue as this one. 

 

 

So much blue!

Blue in the blue cap

Blue in the cordonbleu

Blue in the scientific name

(Uraeginthus cyanocephalus)

Blue in the sky way above

the little bird pulling termites

out of the tree trunks

and bugs 

off the ground.

So much blue!  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Rose is hosting Poetry Friday today.

 

Here are the Birdtober posts so far:  

 

Day 1: Lilac-breasted Roller 

Day 2: 'I'iwi 

Day 3: Resplendent Quetzal 

Day 4: Gouldian Finch 

Day 5: Atlantic Canary 

Day 6: Paradise Tanager 

Day 7: Bee Hummingbird 

Day 8: Spectacled Owl 

Day 9: Rook 

Day 10: Crimson Rosella 

Day 11: Shoebill 

Day 12: Sharp-shinned Hawk 

Day 13: Himalayan Monal

Day 14: Victoria Crowned-Pigeon

Day 15: Long-tailed Broadbill 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 15: Long-tailed Broadbill

 

Green, black, yellow, blue

Builds a scraggly hanging nest 

Wheezes and eats bugs  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Birdtober Day 14: Victoria Crowned-Pigeon

 

Related to the dodo,

They have dark red eyes.

Named for Queen Victoria

And very large in size.

They live in New Guinea

And also in lots of zoos;

They are weird and wonderful

And would be sad to lose.  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey  

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 13: Himalayan Monal

 

I found this recent BBC article about the Himalayan Monal and the way it has changed its voice due to an increase in human noise. The article ends with this quote from a professor called Anjal Prakash: "In listening to the monal, we hear the Himalayas asking for space, silence and care."

 

A Nepalese rainbow bird

Changes the pitch of its call

Reaches out for a mate

Over all the noise of people 

Seeking space

silence

and care  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 12: Sharp-shinned Hawk

Sometimes the Sharp-shinned Hawk is called a Bird Hawk because a large part of its diet is birds. I have one of these birds on my life list; I saw it in Florida. 

 

 

Sharp shins

Sharp eyes

A small bird hawk

 

Throw birds

To young

With high-pitched squawk 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 11: Shoebill

I wrote about the Shoebill here. I have seen them three times. It's only a day trip to see them from where I live, which is pretty amazing since the Shoebill is on many birders' bucket list and people spend a lot to fly to Africa to see them. You have to go out in a boat to Mabamba Swamp in Lake Victoria, and I'm thinking that could very well be where this video was filmed, showing "The Dark Side of Shoebill Chicks." 

 

 

 

Two Shoebill brothers

But only one will survive.

The bigger, older, stronger one

Will attack the other

And the mother will only feed the Chosen One.

Rough luck, younger Shoebill. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey  

 

 

Birdtober Day 10: Crimson Rosella

In 2023 I wrote about the Eastern Rosella. You can see the differences between the Eastern Rosella and the Crimson Rosella here. They come from the same part of the world, southeastern Australia. The two species are similar enough that they hybridize.

 

 

I think we should all be fans

Of Platycercus elegans

Lovely birds with bright blue cheeks

Who shred wood chips with their beaks

I think we should all be fans

Of Platycercus elegans

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Poetry Friday and Birdtober Day 9: Rook

 

 

 

 

Gregarious,

Frugilegus,

Intelligent

and 

Loud

 

If you've seen 

one Rook

then chances are

you've seen a crowd

 

A group of Rooks

is called sometimes

a Parliament or Clamour,

sometimes a Storytelling

filled with iridescent Glamour 

 

Invertebrates

and Carrion

are eaten 

in the

Rookery

 

No need for 

these big birds

to practice

any kind of

Cookery

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

I'm really enjoying this project again this year. It's a lot of fun doing research on all these beautiful birds and creating my 100% AI-free poems. It makes the world seem bigger and brighter to know that all these species are out there.

 

Here are all the Birdtober posts so far:

 

Day 1: Lilac-breasted Roller 

Day 2: 'I'iwi 

Day 3: Resplendent Quetzal 

Day 4: Gouldian Finch 

Day 5: Atlantic Canary 

Day 6: Paradise Tanager 

Day 7: Bee Hummingbird 

Day 8: Spectacled Owl 

 

Jama is hosting Poetry Friday today.

 

Birdtober Day 8: Spectacled Owl

 

It's date night for the pair of Spectacled Owls

They hoot together 

Give head rubs 

Preen each other's feathers

Hang out in the warm Costa Rican night,

Lost in each others'

Giant yellow eyes,

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 7: Bee Hummingbird

 

 

In Haiti we regularly saw the second smallest bird in the world, the Vervain Hummingbird, which I wrote about here. But this bird, the Bee Hummingbird, is the smallest. It lives in Cuba. How I would love to see it!

 

The video says that a Bee Hummingbird may visit a thousand flowers in a day, so I had to look up how many a honeybee visits. Up to seven thousand! So Bee Hummingbirds are not quite as busy as actual bees. The video also says that these birds can be prey for spiders, but I read elsewhere that they eat spiders too. The circle of life!

 

 

Not quite as busy as a bee,

Bee Hummingbirds buzz busily,

Visiting in a single day

A thousand flowers on their way

For energetic food to eat:

A thousand flowers full of sweet.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 6: Paradise Tanager

 

Paradise Tanager

Canopy forager

For bugs and fruits

Masked in chartreuse

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Birdtober Day 5: Atlantic Canary

The Atlantic Canary is called on eBird the Island Canary. The bird is named after the Canary Islands and not the other way around. In fact, the Canary Islands are named after dogs, not birds at all (from the Latin canis). Although this is a perfectly sweet-looking yellow bird, it seems positively dull compared with the first four Birdtober birds this year, all of which were very dramatically colored. 

 

Little yellow bird

Eating seeds and twittering

Living island life 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 4: Gouldian Finch

 

Photo Credit: eBird

 

 

These Australian birds are named after Elizabeth Gould, the wife of the ornithologist who first described them. Some sources call them the Lady Gouldian Finch. Elizabeth Gould was a governess before marriage and a prolific bird illustrator after. She learned lithography from her husband's friend Edward Lear. Her pictures appeared in many of her husband's bird books. When John Gould saw these birds, his wife had recently died of complications after the birth of their eighth child. (You can read more about her and see many of her illustrations here and here and here. I also really appreciated this piece, written by a descendant.) Researching John and Elizabeth Gould, and especially reading the last link, made me think of what I discovered about Eduard Rüppell for this post. Elizabeth Gould has another bird named after her, too, the Mrs. Gould's Sunbird, which lives in the Himalayas.

 

 

 

 

When 

Elizabeth Gould 

died at 37,

she left children,

an ornithologist husband,

piles of delicate, beautiful illustrations,

and two birds: 

the Mrs. Gould's Sunbird 

and the Gouldian Finch.

One drinks nectar

and one eats seeds,

and both are brightly coloured

and called Gouldiae.  

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Birdtober Day 3: Resplendent Quetzal

 

This video starts with other amazing creatures living in Mexico, but a minute in, we meet the Resplendent Quetzal. All the quetzal species are amazing, but even among quetzals, this one is special. Resplendent, in fact. The video says it's the most beautiful bird in the Americas. The famed ornithologist Alexander Skutch said it was the most beautiful bird he'd ever seen, and he saw many more than I ever will. He was so mesmerized by the Resplendent Quetzal that he lived alone in the highlands of Costa Rica for almost a year just so he could watch its behaviour. (You can read more about Skutch's fascinating life here.) Pablo Neruda compared it, in his Ode to Guatemala, to a "sudden sapphire." I read here that for 200 years, European naturalists thought this bird was a myth, and in the video, it's called "a mythical creature," even as we see footage of it flying through the trees, its ribbon-like tail coverts trailing behind. Birders travel from around the world to see and photograph the Resplendent Quetzal, leading Alan F. Poole to call it a million-dollar bird and to report that farmers are urged to keep their land "quetzal-friendly." I thoroughly enjoyed researching this bird!

 

It's one thing to be a gorgeous bird of legend

Trailing three-foot feathers of iridescent green behind you

As you soar through the cloud forest.

But you, oh Resplendent Quetzal

Take it a step further

As you bring bugs and lizards to your offspring.

Spectacular to look at and a good dad?

Now that's what I call resplendent.  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey  

 

 

Poetry Friday and Birdtober Day 2: 'I'iwi

 

Scarlet Hawaiian bird

drinks nectar in cool morning

Sings out, "'I'iwi!"

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

Margaret is hosting Poetry Friday today, so be sure to go visit and see what everyone else is sharing! 

 

Birdtober Day 1: Lilac-breasted Roller and SJT October: The Slow Work of God

 

Today is the first day of Birdtober. It's an event for visual artists, but I've been using the prompts to write daily poems in October for five years now. (All are certified 100% AI-free!) Above you can see 2026's list. And the first bird, the Lilac-breasted Roller, is one I've seen here in Uganda.

 

Strident, squawking,

Rolling, stalking,

Snake devouring,

Colors flowering,

Fearlessly protect their babies 

All while dressed as lovely ladies 

Brown savannas, purple flashes

When lilac-breasted roller passes

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

This month's SJT host, Patricia, shared some words by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin with us. Here's a part of the quote:

 

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. 

 

...it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability --

and that it may take a very long time.

 

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually -- let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste. 

Don't try to force them on, 

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow."  

She asked us where we are trusting -- or struggling to trust -- the slow work of God. I think it's a difficult question to answer, because sometimes we can only see how the work happened as we look back over years. But when I do that, I see many instances where I spent hours of painful worrying over something that has now gone away completely. I wish I had been able to rest and trust that God was at work, but more often I simply fretted. So I assume there are things in my life now that I am wasting my mental energies over, even if I'm not aware of what they are. 

 

When we work with people (I'm a teacher, working with seventh to eleventh graders this year), we know that very few things happen instantly. If it seems that a change or a realization is instant, chances are there were many steps that went before, even if we don't know what they were. People are not machines, and their development is organic rather than mechanical. As Rob Bell puts it, "Seeds, not switches." We have to trust that the seeds we're planting will bear fruit, even though we probably won't be there to see it. 

Reading Update

Book #82 of 2026 was Some Starry Night, by Irene Latham. I bought this in April, right after it came out, and was so excited to read it. Why did I wait until August to read it? Mostly because I read the borrowed books first, and the ones I actually own get left until later! This is a silly way to read and I need to stop doing it. I loved the book, which imagines that Emily Dickinson, the famously reclusive poet, leaves Amherst and goes to Paris, where she meets Vincent Van Gogh. What an amazing thought this is, and Irene Latham does such a beautiful job of creating their conversations and the moments they spend together. I've read lots of this author's books, but this is the first one she's written for adults. Here's a sample: "She wondered how Vincent would paint the beautiful moments of her life. Her world in Amherst with its enchanted memories -- the summer picnics, the winter afternoons tapping maple trees for sap. Could he put the wet, sweet scent of autumn in a painting? The spring's lacy cherry blossoms?" What a wonderful thought!

 

Book #83 was Restart, by Gordon Korman. Thirteen-year-old Chase falls off the roof and hits his head. When he comes to, he can't remember his life before. But gradually he finds out that he was not the nicest guy. Is this an opportunity to be someone new?

 

Book #84 was a book club pick, The Lumber Baron's Wife, by Lynn Austin. Kate, the woman in the title, has a checkered past and a difficult present. We get to see what her life is like in 1870s Michigan, and we also follow Ashley, a modern-day museum researcher who is trying to figure out what happened to Kate and others around her.

 

Book #85 was 28 Summers, by Elin Hilderbrand. This is a story about a couple who spend one weekend together every year for 28 years.  One is married and the other has a series of relationships, but nothing stands in the way of this yearly rendezvous. While reading about infidelity isn't my favorite, I thought this book was very well done. The characters, even the most minor, were so believable. And the results of this illicit relationship - joy, guilt, stress, family tensions - were so real. Book #86 was a related novella, The Sixth Wedding.

 

Book #87 was Edwidge Danticat's new book, Dèy. I decided to learn from my experience with book #82 (see above), and start reading this one the moment the pre-ordered book popped onto my Kindle. I finished it quickly! I am a completist with Danticat, and I've read all of her books except the one about death (it's on my list but I haven't been able to read it yet). This one is set in Miami, but Haiti is never far from anyone's mind. It's about homes, security, trauma, immigration, and, of course grief (dèy is the Kreyol spelling of the French word deuil, which means mourning). It's also about what it's like to love Haiti and not live there. I recommend it. 

 

Book #88 was Liane Moriarty's Big Little Truths. Like other books by Moriarty, this book is deceptively light-hearted, while dealing with extremely heavy and difficult topics.

 

Book #89 was Gabriel's Moon, by William Boyd. I was drawn in by the African theme, but it wasn't really the main story. This is the first of a projected trilogy and I'm not sure I'll read the rest. There were many disparate elements that never quite came together for me. 

 

Book #90 was The One Day You Were My Husband, by Rosie Walsh. I really enjoyed this at first, but the twistiness took it to places I didn't like. 

 

Book #91 was Wild America, by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher. I really loved this book. I have the updated version by Scott Weidensaul, but I wanted to read the original first. It's the story of a 30,000 mile trip across North America in 1953. Two highly knowledgeable naturalists and ornithologists comment on everything they see. I did a lot of Googling to see what has changed in the 73 years since this trip, and now I'm excited to read Weidensaul's book Return to Wild America. 

 

Book #92 was a book club pick, When We Meet Again, by Kristin Harmel. This is the fourth Harmel book we've read together. It wasn't my favorite (that would probably be The Book of Lost Names), but we enjoyed it and it's always great to talk about these things with my book club. 

Poetry Friday: Wendell Berry and the Rhythms of Work and Rest

I shared this poem by Wendell Berry back in October of 2014, but I'm sharing it again today because Wendell Berry died this week at 92. I have been so touched reading all the tributes to Wendell Berry. He was loved by people of all ideological persuasions. And as a farmer and a poet, he understood a lot about how the world works and about finding the balance between what we have to make happen with the sweat of our brow and what happens while we are asleep.

 

 

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Wendell Berry

 

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

 

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

 

Patricia is our Poetry Friday host this week! Go visit and see what everyone else is posting! 

SJT September: Rhythm

This month's Spiritual Journey Thursday host, Ramona, has given us the topic of Rhythm. She wrote, "I would love to hear about rhythms that work for you, the rhythms that ground you in your spiritual life, or anything that pops into your mind relating to rhythm."

 

We're gradually getting back into our rhythms at the school in Uganda where I work. It's week four, so you'd think we'd have everything figured out by now, but I for one do not. This year I'm not teaching an AP class, so I have months to learn about the changes in the AP French exam. I had space on my calendar from the beginning to devote to this project, but it wasn't until yesterday (Wednesday) that I actually started. I'm going to have my first official observation tomorrow (Friday), but I'm still adjusting to all the new students I have, and trying to find out what they can and can't do. I'm part of the team working on the high school play, but we haven't had a rehearsal yet where everyone was present. 

 

So yeah, sort of back in the rhythms and sort of not.

 

One thing that came to mind when Ramona mentioned the word Rhythm was that our middle schoolers are getting ready for Ugandan Independence Day, coming up on October 9th. They are going to be performing some traditional dances from different parts of the country at our school celebration on the 8th, before we go on our October break. And when they are practicing, the drums sound out throughout the neighbourhood. You want to talk about rhythm? These percussionists have it! My classroom is on the other side of the street that cuts our campus in two, but for the people trying to teach in the same building as the drummers: good luck with that! It's better just to stop trying to make yourself heard by your students and surrender to the rhythm!

 

Sometimes that's how it is with spiritual rhythms too. There are seasons when we are in control of our calm devotional moments, and then there are others when the rhythms are bigger than we are. We have to stay on our feet -- or our knees -- as best as we can. Other metaphors we could use instead of the enormously loud drumming might be stormy seas or earthquakes or even flash floods like the horrific scenes we've been seeing in Nepal. When we're in a crisis, either one that's visible to everyone else or one that's only inside of our own souls,  the rhythm can overwhelm. 

 

Whether you're in control of the rhythm or the rhythm is in control of you, I wish all my SJT buddies a great school year. I'm glad we can trust that God is bigger than all of it!