I clicked on a link in yahoo for Zaria Forman's artwork and this is what I found. Absolutely incredible what she achieves with pastel and her depth of thought and caring for the natural world and the power that art has to help move and inspire people to action...incredible!

So it can be said, "that's nature",
but to have lived with this little flycatcher family each spring
for the past five years,
anticipating their return from Central America
like clockwork each April.
Watching their young grow and fledge,
test their wings, find the courage to greet the wide world,
it comes as great sadness to first see that the nest was 
completely empty  
a few days ago.

An emptiness filled me.
What happened?
Where did they go?
They were not old enough to fly for sure.
Before they disappeared, coming home and going out in the morning was an opportunity to say hello,
knowing their parents were working hard to keep them warm and fed.
Bringing a bug in from the sky, the choice protein for growth.
But I also noticed the mother wasn't on the nest in the evening last Friday, and then another day went by, still no mother.

Then Monday following the weekend,
the mother flycatcher was found,
lifeless on the driveway. Its neck broken.
As deft a flier as she was, darting through the window removed from the garage door.
Three other windows still in place
and she must have hit one.

Hundreds of miles she flew to give birth to another family. A family that helps to keep the balance of bugs in our lives in check.
And brings hope and joy to experience the young 
take their first flight 
out into the world.

Baby flycatchers no bigger than a small olive. This is the fourth year they have come back from Central America to nest here, third year on the garage door opener.

I heard a poem read by Garrison Keillor on the  Writer's Almanac, April 26, 2014.... It is a gentle poem about a field mouse  by Pat Riviere-Seel. Here is the link...and there is a story about Frederick Law Olmsted, a pioneer in the field of landscape architecture...he felt learning from nature was invaluable... more so than  formal education which he had also done.  Read that story at the end of the Writer's Almanac posting.

How do you connect to the natural world and how does that inform your daily life?