Valentine's Day Poem*

The lovely Angela found this in her card this year:


A Valentine's Day Heart

looks nothing like the muscled pump
thumping behind skin and ribs;
instead, its pointed symmetry resembles
more an arrowhead which once, perhaps,
graced one of Cupid's mystic shafts--
even that which left his grasp a night
fifteen years ago. (He turned his back
before it struck; the arc it traced was true.)
Now, broken from its stem and drenched
in love's pure distillate, I hand it
back to you and pray your kisses soothe
this precious wound I hope will never heal.


*American Life in Poetry, formerly a regular feature at The O-Files, will not be published here until further notice. To those (few) of you who were coming here for your regular poetry fix, I apologize.

Biblical Poetry: Entry 1

For a few weeks now, I have been carrying the American Life In Poetry column, courtesy of the Library of Congress and the Poetry Foundation. In addition to this feature, I would also like to occassionally bring you snippets of poetry from the most important book in my life, The Bible.

At the outset, I would like to say a couple of things, the most important being that this is more than just poetry, it is the Word of God. Yes, please enjoy the writing, but also, listen to what He is saying. Secondly, this will not be a regular feature; rather I will bring these to you as I come across them in my own reading, or, as is the case with this entry, as a result of our pastor bringing a passage to my attention.

This first entry is very timely. During the Christmas season, we often criticize the crass commercialism that seems to run rampant around this and other holidays. But Haggai, the Old Testament prophet, points out that very often, love of material things is part of who we are, sometimes one of our deepest desires. He uses simple contrasting couplets to highlight the futility of this mentality.


Consider Your Ways

You have sown much,
and bring in little;

You eat,
but do not have enough;

You drink,
but you are not filled with drink;

You clothe yourselves,
but no one is warm;

And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.

Consider your ways.


~from Haggai 1:5-7 (NKJV)

New Poetry Feature!

Many of you are aware of my renewed interest in reading and writing poetry. One of the writers that has helped to reawaken in me this love for words is former Poet Laureate of the United States (2004-2006), Ted Kooser. I would urge anyone interested in reading good modern poetry to start with his Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Delights and Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Another book of Kooser's, The Poetry Home Repair Manual has been very helpful for me in honing my own work. Thanks in no small part to what I learned by studying it, two of my own poems will soon appear in print, my first (other than our local newspaper) publication.

One of the biggest, and perhaps farthest reaching, projects Ted Kooser began during his tenure as Laureate was the American Life in Poetry website and column. Apparently there was a day in the U. S. that newspapers were a frequent avenue of publication for poets of fairly large stature. Nowadays, of course, serious poetry is almost exclusively found in textbooks, literary magazines (whom among us actually reads those?), and, perhaps, church hymnals. Kooser, in an effort to make some of the more accessible modern poetry available to the average person, began producing a weekly column that newspaper and magazine editors (as well as bloggers!) could access and publish free of charge.

It is with great pleasure that I announce tonight that The O-Files will begin carrying this column each week. It is my hope that some out there will rediscover the joy of reading poetry, and that many more might discover it for the first time.

And so, without further ado, I give you . . .


American Life in Poetry: Column 135

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

What motivates us to keep moving forward through our lives, despite all the effort required to do so? Here, North Carolina poet Ruth Moose attributes human characteristics to an animal to speculate upon what that force might be.


The Crossing

The snail at the edge of the road
inches forward, a trim gray finger
of a fellow in pinstripe suit.
He's burdened by his house
that has to follow
where he goes. Every inch,
he pulls together
all he is,
all he owns,
all he was given.

The road is wide
but he is called
by something
that knows him
on the other side.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2004 by Ruth Moose, whose most recent book of poetry is "The Sleepwalker," Main Street Rag, 2007. Reprinted from "75 Poems on Retirement," edited by Robin Chapman and Judith Strasser, published by University of Iowa Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright © 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Preview of Coming Attractions . . .

You may or may not recall last winter when I went AWOL for about 5 months. For many of you it may have been so traumatic that you have repressed the memory; this is entirely understandable.

In order to make sure that you are not forced to undergo such anguish again, I am reserving certain trip reports for the months of the year that actual herping trips are impossible for those of us who live this far north.

One trip that I am looking forward to posting about is a trip I took with the boys to the hill country of Hocking County, OH.

We herped for nearly two days solid, had several adventures, and found some interesting things.
Another reason I am putting this post off is the fact that I am doing some research into the geology of the northern portion of our continent, specifically the way what is called the Wisconsin glaciation affected WI and OH.

I hope these pics fulfill the dual purpose of satisfying your appetite for now and whetting it for later.

O-Files Q&A

I know, dear reader, that I promised a few weeks ago to update you on a couple of trips from May, but between now and then I have learned something that has troubled me greatly, and I feel must be addressed.

There are in this world people who ask their computers questions.

I can only surmise that these are folks who have just recently been introduced to the magic box of witchery that we know as the PC, and that their only previous knowledge of similar equipment was gleaned from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek TOS, and a few junior-high era sessions with a Magic 8 ball. While most of these people are probably still sitting sullenly before the monitor waiting for a verbal response ("computing . . . computing"), some have discovered that handy interface device, the keyboard. In fact, it is due to the activities of this latter group (along that queer tool of divination, the stat-counter) that I first became aware of this phenomenon.

The folks at Ask.com do nothing to help matters. This particular search engine has apparently taken the "if you can't beat them, humor them" approach. At their site, a person may type a question into the query field, and Ask.com brings them back a list of websites which may (or, as seems to be more often the case, may not) answer their question. What Ask.com does, I believe is filter out query words like "how" "when" as well as conjunctions, and then run a typical websearch on the key words.

I hope I have neither shattered any dearly held illusions lonely folk had about their computer talking to them, nor divulged any proprietary corporate information in that last paragraph.

Before we get too deep into the sarcasm, I think that this would be an appropriate time for me to confess that I once typed the following commands into a VIC-20 (one of the first ever home computers).

10 BREAK INTO THE FBI COMPUTERS IN WASHINGTON DC
20 END

I think that reveals sufficient ignorance and naivete to qualify me to engage in the heckling above. For the record, I had not just seen War Games, I had only seen the commercial for it.

The main point I really mean to make is this: we have all had moments where, regardless of how many search parameters we try, we just cannot find the information we want on the internet. And to those of you who have, in the past, experienced similar frustration by coming to my site expecting answers and finding none, I say, "This is YOUR post". I have, over the past couple of months, saved a few questions that I thought might be of broader interest, and will answer them now.

Q: What do Smallmouth Salmanders eat?

A: Smallmouth Salamanders are a widespread member of the Ambystomatid family (which also includes the Tiger Salamander and the Blue-spotted Salamander, among others) of salamanders that inhabits the east-central and south-central portion of the U.S. Unlike other salamanders that seem to need pristine wild areas in order to survive, the Smallmouth persists in agricultural and suburban type habitats. Due to the fact that it spends most of the year underground, this salamander often goes unnoticed by people who live near them and may actually have one or two residing in their yards.

There are at least two sizeable populations of this species within 20 minutes of my house, and my kids are actually keeping one in the basement. We feed it nightcrawlers slightly shorter in length than the salamander itself. I have observed one foraging in the wild, and it too was eating a nightcrawler. They will, however, also eat several other invertebrates that inhabit the same subterranean or forest floor litter haunts.

Q: Does a Eastern Painted Turtle male [get] involved in caring for the young?

A: The answer, sadly, is no. It is pretty tough to find a deader-beat dad than the male painted turtle, who contributes little else to the family unit than a few microscopic cells after a breif courtship with the female. He then goes on his way, looking for another young Chrysemystid heart to break.

While this may inspire outrage in you, save some spite for the mother, who, after carrying the developing eggs and digging a nest, deposits them and leaves the site, perhaps never to see her young again.

Actually, most reptiles and amphibians do not brood their eggs, and none give any parental care (a notable exception to this would be female crocidilians). Some species of snake have, in fact, been known to eat younger members of their kind. It is not at all unlikely that some have consumed their own offspring.

Fortunately for them, baby snakes, turtles, and frogs are born/hatched with all the instinct they need to make their way in this big, uncaring world.

Q: When do painted turtles hatch in Ohio?

A: Painted Turtles nest in late spring and early summer, so the eggs usually hatch in late summer or early fall. Some, however, hatch so late that they simply overwinter in the nest.

That is all for this session of O-files Q&A. I hope you found it to be as helpful and interesting as I intended, and fun rather than offensive.

One final warning, though. I will not answer the question, "Computer, will I ever find love?" No matter how many times you ask.

Updates

Hello Everyone.

I noticed today that my archive links over on the right of this page were not working. With some outside help (thank you Brian A.), that has been rectified.

I noticed this problem because there were some typos in the old posts that I wanted to fix and some places I wanted to insert links to old entries. When I went to get the link, I could not access it.

I wanted to fix the typos and other problems because, thanks to the counter I installed Friday afternoon, I am seeing that I get visits from folks other than just my family and close friends. Which is totally great; I just want them to keep returning and hence the housekeeping.

I know there was a period I didn't update much-- kind of a herpetological brumation. There should be alot of entries forthcoming. I have several in mind already, including the following:

Endangered Species, Part 2
Brown Snakes, Part 2
Area Salamanders, Part 2
Abandonment Syndrome in Domesticated Herpers
Hocking Hills Revisited
My Annual Outing with Joel

Until those are up, please enjoy the newly restored archives.

Welcome

Welcome to The O-Files. First off-- a definition.

ophiophile: noun;1. Literally, a snake lover. 2. More commonly, one who demonstrates a deep interest in snakes and other reptiles to the point that he is regarded with suspicious pity/bemusement/fear by those who know him, close relatives and dear friends included.

By now you can probably figure out the derivation of the website name. There are a couple of other signifigances to it. Some of you understand; unfortunately, no further explanation is forthcoming.My intention is to use this website to detail my various herping activities, as well as include family news for relatives from time to time. At this point I believe another definition is in order.

herping: verb; 1. taking an outing for the purpose of locating, examining and perhaps even capturing the herptiles (reptiles and amphibians) of a given area. This often includes visiting public land or gaining permission from complete strangers to access their land and turn over rocks, logs, or human generated debris. Prone sheets of aluminum seem to be the most productive (In light of this I gladly cry, "Long live the red-neck!")

My hope is that I will foster an appreciation for these amazing animals and perhaps stumble on an unknown population of a particular species, or maybe even find a previously unknown species or subspecies. Or at least have lots of fun. I wish to express my thanks to MadMup for his assistance getting this web site set up. Special thanks as well to my brother-in-law Brian aka BigNick for his design of the logo that will eventually grace the top of this page. To the rest of you, thanks for stopping by and please ENJOY!