Cactus Rose Imagery and Poetry

Posted April 20, 2014 by Texas Two Steppin' -

Our first Earth Day Prairie Wife of the Week, Mary Jo Bogatto (aka Cactus Rose), was featured for her tireless efforts to encourage Texans to preserve their precious natural resources. She is truly passionate about preserving the environment and has graciously shared her poetry and photographs to inspire us all to get involved. If you’d like to learn more, please visit her Cactus Creek Ranch website or friend her on Facebook!

Hope Migrating

The wind was like my mother’s voice, soothing and calming telling me it was okay to go and play beneath the trees and upon the soil. Her voice would encourage me to go and look for buried treasure and fasten forts from vines and limbs and built fires to cook my china berries.

Today, as I lay in this hammock, the sounds of birds singing and tree limbs tapping remind me of my youth. My mother Mary, with the support of Mother Nature, parented me jointly with in the outdoors.  Living along the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico to the rolling plains of Colorado County.  Ice cold water filled the river streams, curved earth of mountain ledges and the caverns where I played as I grew into a young woman.

Today the hummingbirds arrived and I opened the door for my morning coffee break. To my surprise, there must have been forty hummingbirds. I spent the morning watching them as they flickered, suspended around two feeders. They love the new shiny bases to the feeders of past years. They prefer the feeders that have the perches to those without.

The hummingbird show went on for hours interrupted by a wasp, woodpecker and mocking bird.

My mind wanders and I think how wonderful it would be to have a hummingbird Christmas tree. My Christmas tree would have little red feeders and lots of yellow perches outlined in white lights.

My mind wanders again, “The garden must be a manger for the raccoon’s in this drought as the flowers are all matted from them sleeping in them last night.”

The quail flush and sounds of tiny prop propelled engines fill the air as the hummingbirds move from feeder to feeder and I watch as a wood ant scurries down my dress.

My eyes and body are full of the weight of my world. Exhausted by reality and relaxed by hope.

How hard I try to make a difference in the outdoor world, protecting, educating, and passing on my passion, respect and wonder.

Purple Flowers dance in the shadow of the mesquite trees.

The tree tops howl as the mesquite forest protects me and I am swung in my hammock surrounded by green.

Tiny chirps from hummingbirds surround me and if you listen you will hear four chirps followed by one more in a higher pitch as they hasten from feeder to flower and favorite perch.

They climb to the highest limb and then watch anxiously, turning their heads from side to side. What are they looking and watching for with such intent?

Maybe it is to guard their precious nectar. But now there are so many and they sit almost shoulder to shoulder all starring upwards and heads moving from side to side.

What are they searching for?

What is the sign, the one that says it is time to move with this autumn wind? What is the key? Is it the change in pressure or in the degrees of the northern wind, pushing, guiding them? Why do they let me sit so close just feet away and share their cycle of life?

The cat lies beneath my feet and they are not afraid or are they so confident in their abilities and just worn from their travel.

They are newborn, young and old all on the same journey. Migrating through life and to life!

I am not sure why today but the sounds, smells, and caressing touch of wind have taken me back to my favorite childhood memories. They are the memories of the outdoors where I felt safe.

The sound of the wind through the mesquites reminds me of the ocean raising to the shore and then retreating. The tides are calming and then fierce with the return of the waves.

I wonder if Mother Nature intended us to hear and feel the same in the woods and upon the sands of the oceans door.

Mother Nature has created lullabies to help us feel free and safe.  My precious memories and Mother Nature’s daily gifts of wonder supply our hearts and souls with poetry that help us understand..–©2014Mjo/The Cactus Rose

The Hummingbird Tree

This tree so rich with the shimmers of green, white and red feathers glistens to the sway of the wind and boughs of trees dancing.

I have not felt this weight of comfort for many years and possibly not since I was a child.

A child filled with hope, hope for my future and hope for the future of my feathered friends.

The hummingbirds and I came together today and as I shared my wealth of water and nectar, they trusted and shared their life.

I feel as though they have brought back my youth.

The sight of their beauty and the frailness of their size combined with the determination to survive.

So tiny and the only thing they seem to fight is each other?

I wonder if our creator sees the same in us.

The leaf reaches for the sun as if to waltz.

A hummingbird flutters level to my eye and stays for 60 seconds looking at me with questions and I return the stare with no answer.

Exhausted by reality and relaxed by hope.–©2014Mjo/The Cactus Rose

Categories: Life As It Happens

Tags: , hummingbird, land, nature, photos, poetry, Prairie Wife