Thursday, April 11, 2019

Elfi Elf


Elfi Elf
Little Rabbit
running round my room.
you whined and
gave a thump if I didn’t watch you.

And so I watched you go.

Background blurring in your vision,
hopping fast in happy circles,
clicking your heels and
ripping my carpet without a care.

Life’s too short not to run races
around a room or weed-ridden backyard.
Too short to forget to fling sand from your sandbox.

Too short to be sad, but sad you never were.

Just a baby,
you bit my fingers.
Sassy, but sweetly,
you groomed my eyelids.
staring inquisitively,
Your marble eyes quizzed mine.

You hummed a happy tune,
running circles round my room.
Loved me deeply
Little Rabbit
and oh how much I truly loved you!

Then I heard you whine.

This time, a death cry.
I tried everything I could.
Couldn’t save a soul so fragile.
My poor baby was too small for this wide, wild world.

My ethereal elf
with a feathered face,
Manes were made as halos to put on angels like you.

Now you’re hopping
from the forest of my thoughts
to make me watch you—live like you:


Move only in happy circles.
Do whatever you want to.
See myself the way you saw you.
Thump thunderous even if no one is watching!
Hm hm hm a little tune.
 No photo description available.





Saturday, October 27, 2018

Internal Toxcicity

I have a question for you
Doubt
and Me. I'm wondering:
       Where do hurting hearts wander?
       Where do they end
                    and I feel
forgotten.

The pain of acidic insides
poison leaching from
        faulty ways of exuding it
from myself.

How does someone
        transform pain?
        and poison
from Myself?

Perhaps it's Me.



Monday, May 2, 2016

Study Skins

Hi Everyone, 
I've written another piece called Study Skins. It is also about birds, but is an extended metaphor. I've also experimented with form, so I've inserted the piece below as pictures to maintain the structure. I am unsure how to go about posting this differently and am open to ideas if anyone is more tech savvy than me.

Anyway, zoom in and enjoy!











Sunday, May 1, 2016

Aves

Hi everyone! I won a college writing contest, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Norther Lights Essay Contest. Other contest winners and the titles of their submissions can be found here. Enjoy! 

Aves
When a bird breathes life, it gives us stories. I once let a fairy tale convince me that claws would pierce my irises and a blood stained beak would forever trap my sight. Years passed until I could cross my darkened yard alone without sprinting, wishing to empty my ears of the horrible hoho hoo hoo of the Great Horned Owl and absurdities people tell gullible children. I remember being greeted by a hummingbird while watering flowers—black-pearl eyes inquisitive, emerald wings buzzing conversation. My neighbors paid me for hydrating their plants, but at age twelve, money wasn’t nearly as important as being able to capture the flying jewel’s bill poised in a dainty smile only feet from my face. He zipped off after I eyed him for a breath. Since then, I’ve wished my eyes were cameras. From the time I was fourteen until about age eighteen, I heard the enthusiastic trills and clicks of my canary when the eastern sun struck his lemon feathers. Head high and neck fluffed as a dandelion, he explained how the phone rang. I cried the first time he told me this, as I thought he couldn’t sing. He was shy, only a year old when I first met him, but eventually his pitch stung my eardrums. Every day after school, he greeted me with the same, always precious song.
I’ve felt avian interest in fleeting pulses since I was five years old. My family took me to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, open all year long because their bears do not hibernate. I figured they couldn’t with everyone laughing loudly as they wrestled and gasping as the wolves appeared, heads as large as that of a horse. Afterward, we visited the gift shop. Instead of one of the iconic predators, I asked for a Raven toy. They were black velvet thieves—confident to eat the predators’ food right beneath their noses, never once getting cut by a claw. My curiosity persisted since then. Staring at the Ruffed Grouse through my cracked window one summer, I desired to return heat to his skin, though its soul long since left his red-speckled chest. I’ve spent weekend drives admiring eagle nests placed dizzyingly high atop telephone poles, dreaming of living there nearly breathing in the clouds, watching pheasants run between the sparkling choruses of songbirds.  
The world holds more than ten thousand species of birds, most of which I will never see. The Emu is the tallest I’ve touched and the only one with two feathers sprouting from each shaft. His head bobbed up through gaps in a fence panel. Fast as I thought I was at fifteen, I never would’ve caught his friend, another Emu, who left him fast as the cars in town to chase a train. When I was eighteen, “his eyes!” was all I could say in response to witnessing the most shocking, perfect yellow—the irises of my first Great Grey. Months passed as I searched for one, but they’d rather appear to the unsuspecting witness, home for college winter break. Of all the birds I’ve met, the white parrot in the shelter uptown is the only bird who’s laughed at me—a joyous, unnatural sound.
The American Robin sheltered her topaz gems beneath the gooseneck of Dad’s trailer. The nest was protected from driving rains, but what an inconvenient place, situated against various cables, sure to be crushed by the act of hitching, or stolen by gusts when following the highway.  Thus, we rode our horses in the yard and glued a plastic cobra in the gooseneck once the red-breasted family fledged. The nest filled with color the following spring. Our friend’s Araucana condensed spring landscapes into drops of pastel green, which we received in a basket as a special surprise. I’d never seen eggs dyed from the internal chambers of a hen living under a swing set and wondered how the yolk looked. The oblong moon of the African Ostrich filled both of my child hands when I visited Tanzania. Its porous exterior was cloud white, the scramble from its contents just as fluffy on my toast. They were the best eggs I’d ever eaten. All bird eggs are calcium carbonate. Beneath the fragile dome is a pulse, which usually beats free from its holding.
In college, I took summer class taught by a field biologist. He admired insects and peony flowers, yet never went a class without declaring, “Birds are the pinnacle of evolution!” Almost every Tuesday of July, we’d meet before class began. I wanted his words—declarations and advice—and the map to his feathery world. Either from our talks of career preparations or his enthusiastic stories of international bird banding adventures and owl box checks, something sparked in my stomach.
In a sea of haggard spruce trees, five owls pendulated between branches and telephone poles, hunting and chanting to their mates. When I awoke I felt acute emotion swirling in my core. I want to find birds of numerous kinds, sing their melisma, touch the silken barbs of their feathers, and devote every hour to discovering them from their souls to the scythes of their claws. For the first time, then age twenty, I finally felt unquestionable passion.
I began volunteering at the banding station in Creamer’s Field, feeling lucky that such a special place was only a ten minute drive from campus. The station set learning opportunities right between my fingers. Waking up with the cranes calling overhead, rushing the dingy sky to brighten, I hurried to the site. I set up nets invisible to avian eyes and extracted an impressive variety of birds from the tangled mess of thread-thin nylon. My fingers shook, afraid of hurting the hollow-boned beings, but the first one I freed was my favorite color, a slate grey Dark-Eyed Junco. Everything must be alright. Later, a thrush yelled at me once I freed her head, a sharp affirmation of my newfound confidence. After three hours, I returned to campus for class, feeling tired, knowing the experiences were worth every lost hour of sleep.  
A universal agreement among the banders at our station concerned the Black Capped Chickadee—they are the angriest of all species pulled from our mist nets. One individual pressed her beak furiously into the skin of my knuckle for four whole minutes, refusing to release her hold even when I opened my fingers to let her fly back to the trees. I hardly felt it, but I remain impressed with the tough ferocity of Alaska’s smallest overwintering bird. Many of the children who visited the station loved the Wilson’s Warbler, a cheery yellow speck in our hands. I feared the one I held would slip his minute head through even the smallest space between my fingers before we could take measurements, his warm pulse upon my palm sharing his life. Most people in town have seen robins, but I’d never realized how thick the legs of one felt and how robust their chests are until trying to contain one against the same palm. Everyone admired the idiosyncrasies of the songbirds, yet I hoped the lessons they taught me were applicable to the frost feathered owls of Alaska’s northernmost coast.
One day soon I’ll visit Barrow, the place whose ocean and snowy owls I’ve always wanted to touch. I will find purpose while studying their habits and gathering data to help promote their recognition and our understanding—preserve an icon of the north.  All owls are intriguing, ominous creatures, marked by vicious determination and strength. They are silent, appearing at the unlikeliest of times, twisting their heads impressively to absorb their surroundings in more detail than humans could ever hope to obtain. Yet I want to hear a cackle across the tundra most of all. I think the allure stems partly from Barrow itself, while the snowys simply happen to be there. When I was a kid, I dreamed of touching the Arctic Ocean because it was impressively far from my home and I didn’t like feeling hot as I would in the tropics. I knew I couldn’t go to a place without a name, and Barrow was the farthest city dot on our family’s globe. I’d feel lucky to be the first in my family to travel to such a latitude. Coincidentally, I’ve found the perfect convergence of a past and present desire—a second’s view of a golden iris and the ice laden sea spray stinging my hand will appease me till my memory dies.
Ever since waking to fateful feelings that summer morning, I’ve needed to answer a calling. Why or where this impulse came from, I can’t be entirely sure, but it’s stolen my thoughts and quickened my heartbeats. Sometimes I consider myself crazy for my feelings, but the birds beckoned me. The Sandhills whooped welcome to my unsuspecting, fearful heart when I first arrived at college in Fairbanks. Watery yelps of the Raven became my favorite north sound, pleasing my ears whenever I heard them on campus or on walks through town. White and red morphed from the windswept snow as a Ptarmigan, surprising me on my first trip to the Arctic Circle. I even found a feather of a Great Horned Owl on the sidewalk while walking across campus. Surly, these encounters were signs saying birds are my species and Alaska is the place for us.
My visions are carried on wings. They come in innumerable colors, variety, and strength, like the birds at their centers. I focus on my future with the owls of Barrow and other birds I hope to find. Every memory, each encounter, and sign after sign solidify my dreams into paths. They lead from my core across Alaska, and anywhere else I could possibly desire to go, anywhere a bird and I are destined to meet. They show themselves all around me, somehow within reach.
 by: Jessica Herzog 

A Great Horned Owl I saw on the UAF campus in the summer of 2015.

Class Assignment
Submitted for the UAF Northern Lights Essay Contest, March 2016 


Saturday, November 28, 2015

Skiing at UAF




 Many people spend Black Friday  racing through stores and blowing their money on the best deals yet. I had just as much fun skiing though. Hitting the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) ski trails a great way to get outside...for free!

The UAF trail system is great for skiing, walking, and snowshoeing. 


Watch out for branches above! Might get snow down your neck.
Some branches are small.

The trails are surrounded by trees.
Eventually, you'll reach Smith Lake or Ballaine Lake. The sky was pastel.
Some trees were shaded, while others were spotlighted in the sun. I loved the effect.



My favorite trees.

I hope everyone had a fun Friday and got a chance to enjoy outside!

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Quaking

Hi Everyone! I wrote Quaking for my fiction class as part of a writing exercise. We were told to pick a news article and use it as a branching point for a scene. I came across this link and began writing. I hope you enjoy!

Quaking
Sometimes I worry about what could fall on my head or if I’ll come home one day to see my building shaking. I might reach the block and see my neighbors’ buildings in a heap upon the ground, or worse—them crushed to the concrete. Yet today, I didn’t wonder because my worry became the real thing.

I live with a fault line.

I was walking to my apartment from my office building. The sun was warm overhead and dogs ran through the parks. I saw people holding hands and cars rolling past. Then, I lost my balance.
I heard roaring like a cement truck, but still only cars rolled past. As I wobbled back atop my feet, I watched the dogs pause, noses to the air. My heart started pounding and I wished it would’ve stopped, for I think it sent vicious waves straight down the block.

Those waves of vengeful energy lifted the streets. They threw people down screaming and ripped the leaves off the trees.

I started running to my apartment, sick to think of impending doom, but I couldn’t stay in the open or my bones would be lost in engineering’s tomb.

I know this, because as the street stretched up, moaning, I watched the buildings dance side to side to the roar of dissonant music. I heard the people scream to make them stop, as if dance wasn’t soulful here, but of course they couldn’t. They wouldn’t.

They wanted to crumble, and crash they did.

From afar, I watched them shorten, buildings who once stopped the drifting clouds. They fainted from exertion or found it amusing to spread across the ground. They covered the displeased audience—my people.

Dust particles entered my nose, turning mucous to cement. I hoped it would cloud my vision of the horror ahead, but outside of our dreams, reality never quits.

Yet earthquakes do.

Only five blocks later and the turmoil ran its course. My city died in a heartbeat and I had to wonder.

I knew I should.

Could I leave my people crying, homeless within one small slice of the clock? Who will clean up the messes—all the dirt, blood, broken hearts?

I can’t help but think I had a premonition. I must’ve known what was to come, but I worried and now I wonder.


Would this still have been real had I told someone?