Date: 12/11/25 5:35 am From: Joseph Neal <0000078cbd583d7c-dmarc-request...> Subject: RED DUSTY ROADS, STRONG NORTH WIND (Maysville)
What I submitted to eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S288123140 I like open country.
Brilliant cardinal flocks in comparative drab of winter.
Their bright dress.
White-crowned Sparrow songs.
Buteos hunting from stationary platforms
Sharp cold north wind. Where does it begin? Turkey Vultures swimming in gusty wind, tilting like foot-tapping to music. Leaf fall exposing how trees grow as they are being nourished by the sky. Just blue sky on a cold day.
Savannah Sparrows in the grass. They flush up into little trees, hang there like last leaves, and they watch. And think. I wonder what they see.
Partial moon melting into the blue. North wind whistling through utility lines. Stems and seed heads of summer Tallgrass Prairie – their memories mixed with N wind – the husky rattle – silhouettes in a blue sky.
Squeaky rusty tin of an abandoned chicken house, juncos flushing from surrounding brush. Memories of prairie-chickens and Bison. Osage hunters and villages. Indian Grass. Big Bluestem universe.
I write what I see and feel and infer from sunlight reflected in the seed heads of Little Bluestem Grass. Downy, feather-like, detaching to float in the N wind.
