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Poems and Thoughts by Frank Maurer

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Microtus

Campangol (Campanyol) opus 64

My study creature of choice in graduate school
Was the ubiquitous Meadow Vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus.
My base study area at Cornell was an open field laced with hay bales.
To be really efficient, in addition to the use of traps,
Was to quietly approach a bale and suddenly flip it.
Then there was a dive and a scramble,
Scooping up whatever was moving.
Proper mothers and offspring were often collected together,
Preserving the accurate genetic line in one fell swoop!

Many years later, I find myself in California,
Surreptitiously meeting a professor studying the large Microtus of the West.
We hit it off, friendship wise, as biologists often do; with us, the binding Microtus!
And, of course, as I have learned in my now home of 45 years,
Our belov-ed tiny mammal in Spanish is Campangol (Campanyol) (the mouse of the field)!

My Dream of the Golden-haired Microtus opus 94

In my dream, which I wondrously recalled upon waking,
Students divided up, some collecting normal brown-haired Microtus,
While I and others sought out the beautiful and fanciful, golden-haired specimens.
Is there any 'meaning' to this, (or to most others), only as a bizzare recounting--
Perhaps a mental culmination, after so many years,
Rewarding my love for this creature with which I mingled my Ph.D. student years,
By imagining a beautiful semi-fossorial and important Microtine,
Donning it with a mantle of golden hair?

Flying V: After a long Hiatus opus 116

A long interim of school, work, and marriage,
Until graduate school hit and my related field work.
I was studying blood transferrins of the Meadow Vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus.
I managed to be accepted in the Conservation Department of Cornell,
Working with electrophoresis under Professor Charles Sibley.
(His son, David Allen Sibley, paints and writes the bird ID guides!)
Field work consisted of capturing these voles from under hay bales
In nearby Ithaca (NY) hay fields--all set up for me.
From under distributed hay bales, I would flip and lunge for my 'prey'.
In my five years, I captured and bred more than 6000 rodents.

Nearby was the Ithaca airport
Which spewed out plane after plane, winging over my fields.
After several months, I could take it no longer,
And bicycled over to the nearby port to inquire about lessons.
Unhesitantly I signed up for whatever was going to come.
For more than 30 hours, I concentrated diligently to earn my first solo flight.
What an absolute thrill to rise from the earth alone,
And maneuver this machine to come round and return safely to the waiting ground!
Many more tests would occur before a license was granted:
Flying cross country with a map spread over my lap--
The railway tracks--on the north or the south side of that highway?;
Realizing I needed to connect the map with rising topography ahead;
Listening to the radio announcement of another student,
Landing simultaneously, heading straight towards me from the incorrect direction;
Landing in the dark--control lights off and listening to the wind
Through an open window so as not to stall;
Dropping abruptly down over a barrier of trees
In order to reach a short runway immediately ahead.

Tough lessons which provoked deep thought and common sense;
Preparing me for a series of further flying challenges.
Which actually kept me alive!

Music To My Ears, III. Later Years. Cornell opus 232

Well, I began applying to Grad Schools--Duke and Cornell being two.
I decided on Cornell in Ithaca, NY, near my maternal grandparents farm on Seneca Lake.
(When I started flying, I flew to visit the farm,
Repeating the Republic Seabee (pontoon) flight with my father,
When I was about 10 years old, first gliding over that same farm!)
The Cornell program was experimental,
Allowing certain students to skip Masters and proceed straight to Ph.D.
My professor was Charles Sibley in the Conservation Department.
He was an ornithology specialist and we studied that group, using starch gel electrophoresis.
I was being trained in the techniques,
And before I made a decision for a study subject,
Sibley decided to transfer to Yale.
I decided to stay and study with Daniel Q. Thompson, a conservation professor.
So, I took up the torch, working with the vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus.

As all this was occurring, I joined the Cornell orchestra,
Led by the well-known conductor, Karel Husa.
I became first bassist, with many concerts following,
One of which was playing at the Kennedy Center in New York City,
For the one hundredth anniversary of Cornell University!
On about my third year at Cornell, with the Vietnam War raging,
I, remembering my conducting 'history', approached Karel,
And asked if I might conduct the orchestra at some point.
He was very kind, but said that there were many 'professionals' in the orchestra,
And that would really not be appropriate, but added
That if I took his conducting class, I would be obliged to conduct!
Such a wonderful person, who understood a person's real desire.
I took the course, learned many techniques, and prepared my score--
Brahm's Symphony 2 and one of its movements--I remember not which.
I do remember one portion was a delightful two against three rhythm.
After weeks of preparation, my time arrived.
I watched the 'real' music majors doing their stuff--
So weak, with no real strength in their motions.
(A couple admitted to me that they had no interest in conducting.)
I wore a blue Tom Jones large sleeve shirt
And went through the paces with great gusto!
Upon concluding, I was completely elated and on a musical high.

Well, a year passed and the end of the term was approaching.
I was waiting to be conducted by a new batch of student conductors.
After one of the rehearsals, Karel came to me
And asked if I would like to conduct again.
I was delighted and he invited me to view a score--
It was the 'Unanswered Question' by Charles Ives.
The piece had three tempi going on simultaneously!
Karel asked me how I would conduct this short, but complex piece.
I said I would cue the trumpet and then cue the four flutes,
While maintaining my continual conducting of the complete string section.
Karel, who was a flamboyant conductor paused
To check the Ives' notes in the score--
Karel (I suspected) expected that the instructions would be
That one would fully conduct the trumpet and the flutes,
While just cuing the whole orchestra. (Impossible, I thought.)
Goodness, Ives suggested just what I had proposed!
Later, the demonstration went very well,
Of course after much work on the score.
Karel, I guess, was impressed with my performance,
And asked me, since the piece lasted only 10 minutes,
To repeat the whole work once again.
I was honored and terribly pleased.
I left Cornell after my four years with a Ph.D.,
Having aspirations and anticipation for my continuing, unfolding life.

(It is interesting that in my much later (1980's) farm life in Davis, California,
I came upon a new bird guide with excellently painted bird figures,
published by a David Allen Sibley, undoubtedly, Charles Sibley's son,
who took up the ornithological mantle, not with the study of genes,
but through pigment and painting. The names in this book were being
changed as a result of the newest scientific DNA techniques, the
result from some of the work in electrophoresis by his father.
History repeats and spirals upwards!)