Joshua Ward

Deafening myself with Dog Days are Over while walking to my grad student orientation and minutes later seeing Florence’s next album announcement #ftm6

“Defunded but not defeated” is the hardest quote of resistance I’ve heard so far

A red-saturated portrait of a copperhead, a whimbrel on a dark rocky shoreline, a Clark’s nutcracker in a winter environment, and a Long-billed Hermit in a rainforest, all arranged to form the flag of Palestine

Not enough people (me included as of just a few minutes ago) are aware of the existence of Sámi rap, which goes astronomically hard

A White Fringed Orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis) blossoming in front of the morning sun in an Adirondack peat bog

A casual morning in the bog: my lifer White Fringed Orchid (Platanthera blephariglottis), one of dozens blooming between tamaracks and spruces, swamp candles and cottongrass, purple pitchers and sundews, with singing Lincoln’s Sparrows and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers

So I’ve gone to two poetry open mics in a row—one at @busboysandpoets.bsky.social and then another tonight at Tryst, both in DC, and man the community of cool people you find at these things rivals the folks you run into while birding.

The vibes: it’s fun to be human and talk to other humans

Sitting in the parking lot of Breaks Interstate Park, the only place within like 15 miles that has good cell signal, just called like 9 senators offices, and a Cerulean Warbler sings in the trees above me.

Proof of God?????

My mom (veterinarian) had a client ask about me the other day. My mom told her that I’m headed back to VT for an MFA.
Today, she came in with a selection of poetry books, and asked my mom to pass them to me🥹
Neruda, Lorca (whom
I’ve wanted in my library for a while), Cohen, and more!!
#poetrysky

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—-praying, work-ing, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts-not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

A few words of comfort from CS Lewis.
Don’t allow fear to remove what defines you.

A friend just asked me what I do to stay hopeful and I told him one of my favorite strategies…I stay hopeful by remembering that no one has any idea what the fuck is going to happen, so as long as we don’t know, we gotta do what we can.

Marine veterans are speaking out against the troop deployment in Los Angeles. Across the country, they’re taking down their American flags that have flown in front of their homes for years. Remember, we have friends everywhere.

*Mourning Warbler popping out 10 feet away from me in full sun*
“No one will ever believe you”
*disappears before I can so much as touch my camera*

From BlackLiturgies on insta

We have hope. Rebellions are built on hope.

it's cool that we managed to put machines on mars that can take and send pictures and i support space exploration as a public endeavor and public good, but holy fuck everything we've seen out there is so much uglier and less cool than our own planet

How does a president just have the power to strip research funding from a university. No one person should have that power. Presidents should be civil servants, not kings. Otherwise we would just have kings

a close up of a cartoon character wearing sunglasses and gloves . ALT: a close up of a cartoon character wearing sunglasses and gloves .

First day as a junior instructor for @audubon.org Hog Island Spring Migration on Monhegan program and the campers are about to arrive

@greatsmokynps.bsky.social I literally just watched a whole family of Ovenbirds fledge their nest in front of me I’m gonna CRY🥹

Me: Can I get a county lifer Mourning Warbler?
The universe, for some reason: Nah but I got 14 other warblers and 4 first-of-years

They've spent years claiming undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes. Now they're using IRS records to track them down. Irony is officially dead.

"And isn't it ironic?
Don't you think?
A little too ironic
And yeah, I really do think"˜Ãlanis Morissette

First Gull-billed Tern I’ve seen in the US since 2017 plus 6 other tern species, 14 shorebirds, 6 gulls, Chuck-wills-widow, Western Cattle Egret, and a continuing female Redhead all make for a banger of a morning on the Outer Banks #birdsky

Scientists' Letter in Opposition to Rescinding the Regulatory Definition of “Harm” in Endangered Species Act Regulations May 19, 2025 Submitted via: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034-0001 Public Comments Processing Attn: FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, MS: PRB/3W 5275 Leesbu...

Calling all scientists! There's less than one week left to boost support to protect endangered species' habitat safeguards in the Endangered Species Act.

Sign on to the scientists' open sign-on letter here and please share: biodiv.us/4mojih5

The first two Shrek movies are undoubtedly unmatched masterpieces but the third one doesn’t get enough credit for also being great. Snow White using the power of Led Zeppelin to unleash a horde of birds against two talking trees? The sequence of the king dying? The baby nightmare scene? Iconic

Dodging cars barreling at Mach 5 down a mountain road to photograph a blooming Frasier magnolia only to drive further down the road to find a lower, easier-to-photograph magnolia

Blossoms on a Flame Azalea

Since I’ll be busy on the Global Big Day, a college bestie and I made today our “unofficial big day”, and we raked in an even 100 species, including 21 warbler species, a Barn Owl, and 30 Bobolink!
Undoubtedly the highlight for me were these ridiculous flame azalea blooms, spotted by said bestie!!

Sometimes I see people online asking how poetry specifically can change the world and while there are a lot of ways to tell them that is missing the point entirely I think right now this is one of the most important of them

Writing/doing any sort of work in a coffee shop/cafe has me eating in the daintiest manner possible. Were I in my car, I’d be housing this pastry. But here? With my journal and my lemonade, surrounded by strangers? I’m taking little rabbit bites with my pinky up.

If James Hetfield declares that all new fans are now part of the @metallica.com family, then by extension all of Metallica are honorary Hokies🦃

“This is not our record” is goddamn bone-chilling.
And here we are stuck with a president who switched back to single-use plastic straws in the federal sector, after dishing out thousands of reusable ones in 2019-2020
To top it off, here’s part of his justification for doing so (via @apnews.com):

Men are not constantly being told “you’re bad,” they are constantly being told “LEFT WING SJWS THINK YOU’RE BAD” by conservative propaganda. There’s a huge difference.