Dragonfly - "The sound of your wings was music to me."

                                                       Dragonfly

"The sound of your wings was music to me."

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

          Red Dragonfly (Sympetrum flaveolum) Order Odonata

 

The child in me lives, it lives forever.

It lives in a dragonfly

Many years ago I captured for fun.

 

Ah, you bought me back to my yesteryears

When I would run to catch you in the field.

The sound of your wings was music to me.

Then, when my childish whim was satisfied,

I longingly set you free. ~

 

Acknowledgement: Internet photo

Nature Verses 1: "Beauty builds upon beauty, ad infinitum."

Nature Verses 1

"Beauty builds upon beauty, ad infinitum."

Dr Abe V Rotor

Birds roosting AVR 2015

1. Ivy, ivy on the wall,

Creeping shy and small;

Spread your arms to hide

My dark and ugly side.

2. How can the sun reach the hadal depth,

Where the world is cold, where love is dearth?

Hasn't someone a bit of sun long kept?

Come, come and save the hearth.

3. Impossible to the old,

Im-possible to the bold;

Retire for the night,

Re-tire for the might.

4. Truth hidden when not needed

May breed lies unheeded;

And wrong a mob embraces

Is like a basket full of roses.

5. Make believe growth and prosperity;

A vessel sounds louder when empty.

6. Only good wine grows mellow with age;

So does a good man grow into a sage.

7. But children are children,

Knowing not a mob or crowd;

Curiosity, danger and dream

Lie behind a thin shroud.

8. Up in the sky a pattern most queer,

Stars tell of the destiny of men;

Wouldn’t a genius from slumber stir,

Or a faithful pray beyond Amen?

9. A vessel holds water to the brim,

Unless it bears a crack at its rim;

As men wish power in their dream

Even if they have lost their steam.

10. Beauty builds upon beauty,

Ad infinitum to eternity.  ~

*Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio738 DZRB AM 8 to 9 Evening Class, Monday to Friday

"Once upon a time, nature was pristine..."

  "Once upon a time, nature was pristine..."

Paintings and verses by Dr Abe V Rotor

"Once upon a time, nature was pristine, undefiled and unspoiled. We used to live in a dreamworld of tropical virgin forest, and pure hidden springs, calm ponds, and serene lakes, with majestic purple mountains, crowned with canopied trees. That was when people took only what they needed, caught only what they ate, and lived only in constant touch with a provident earth._

Dr Anselmo S Cabigan - former director for Research NFA, and professor SPU-QC.  The author and Dr Cabigan worked together in the government and academe until their retirement.

In this age of environmental degradation , resource depletion and unparalleled human population explosion, how can man live and find meaning in his life with nature?" (Dr AS Cabigan - an excerpt from the introduction of The Living with Nature Handbook, by AVR  2003)

Born from the elements of nature, to the elements of art,

in imagery and fantasy;

what takes eons to shape and form, is but a season's part,

an archive out of reality.

 

Oh, let them be, let them be, school can wait

but not childhood;

they catch not the fish, but adventure and faith 

as they grow old.  

Community -  what concept have we today from that of yesterday

when things we needed were almost free,

and worked less, and spend more time with others and our family,

and thank the Creator for such bounty? 

This hidden valley, not for exclusion or seclusion,

but survival from the lust of man,

whose concept of beauty, its very own destruction,

'til everything he created is gone.  

And what prevails at the end?  We may ask,

not monuments, relics or any kind,

for through time nature takes over the task 

of rebuilding in her own design. ~

Butterflies Re-visited

Butterflies Re-visited 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Butterflies on the wall mural by the author 2022.  

San Vicente Botanical Garden.

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

"On an old wall butterflies hover and flutter 

for my return many, many years after." - avr

"Butterflies are a metaphor representing spiritual 

rebirth, transformation, hope, and life." - avr

                                     “Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, the last of life, 

for which the first was made.”

– Robert Browning*

* English poet and playwright Robert Browning extends an invitation to age well by viewing one’s final years as the best yet to be. He takes it a step further by declaring that our first seasons of life were actually made for enjoying our “last of life.” It’s as if Browning is saying, “Old age, game on!” Internet

Loving couples of the feathered kind

  Nature painting and poetry:

 Loving couples of the feathered kind

 "Perched up high, love is in the air, while the world goes by, in love and in war."

Details of paintings by Dr Abe V Rotor 

A pair of lovely parrots perched up high,
higher than the flight of butterfly;
aimlessly below many a passerby
 let the world go with a sigh,

Sonorous song this hornbill pair,

 deep in heavy forest air;

love expressed sweet and fair,

in countless ways to share.

  

Up high above the forest canopy 

into the blue sky free,

peace on earth these doves carry

in white for humans to see. ~

Detail of a wall mural by the author.

A pair of kalaw birds watches over  

a family of geese by a waterfall.

while children cheer upstream, 

indeed it's a happy summer for all. ~

Are dinosaurs alive today?

Are dinosaurs alive today?

In an evolutionary sense, birds are a living group of dinosaurs

because they descended from the common ancestor of all dinosaurs.

                                                                     Dr Abe V Rotor

Author's children Marlo and Anna pose before a dinosaur fossil

 in an exhibit on natural history in QC-MM 1987

Even your tree has been felled,

your phylogeny now a memory;

for you were lost in the current,

in the repetitious mechanism

of the universe,

when one day stood still

while you were acting

in too many parts of the play,

in too long a time.

Your life is twice told, 

understanding it backward,

through the art 

of marble and mud. ~

Dinosaurs lived during three periods of geological time - the Triassic period (which was 252-201 million years ago), the Jurassic period (about 201-145 million years ago) and the Cretaceous period (145-66 million years ago). These three periods together make up the Mesozoic Era. Are dinosaurs still alive? In an evolutionary sense, birds are a living group of dinosaurs because they descended from the common ancestor of all dinosaurs. Other than birds, however, there is no scientific evidence that any dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, or Triceratops, are still alive. Internet ~

Kaleidoscopic Views in Nature

 Kaleidoscopic Views in Nature  

(Original title: Kaleidoscope in Nature)  

Paintings and Poem by Dr Abe V Rotor

Summer-Autumn Scape in acrylic (20" x 24") AVR 2015

A world of colors in splendor and grandeur,

     in magnificence and glory;

the mountains in summer, the trees in autumn;

     the sky at sunset over the sea.

Undulating hills, meandering rivers,

     flowing down through the mist;

the valley wakes up to the magic of sunrise,

     in living colors that never cease.

Coral reefs, counterpart of gardens on land,

     untouched this submarine park

in luxurious colors and hues in the day,

     hauntingly glow in the dark.  

The rainbow grows in the sky with dreams,

     romance in the air in colors divine

for a lovely pair bound by love and care,

     with nature's beauty they enshrine. ~

 Earthscape in acrylic by the author 2020

Pondscape in acrylic by the author 2020

*Kaleidoscopic -  quickly changing from one thing to another. ~