Summer birds have flown
cold weather sleep calls to bears
almost feeder time
Tag Archives: birds
Haiku for a March Friday
silver cloud fingers
swift birds fly across the wind
dawn light rising cold
Haiku for a feeder Tuesday
many rowdy jays
a feather hunched morning dove
hawk gliding over
Haiku for a stormy Monday
white pines draped in snow
fierce winds shepherd the new storm
birds will need more food
A haiku for day 52
Small joy in bird song
Hold tight the reins of longing
Imagine us whole
Meringue
Crunch under
my steps
over ersatz
spread snow,
Replenish
the feeder
cast seed
for the crew.
Doves hogging
the bounty
let others
go hang.
This fool’s day
with icing
starts off
with a bang.
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NaPoWriMo 2017 day 1! We’re off to the races, rabbit rabbit rabbit. This was a fun prompt since I’m not much for rhyme, but it always comes (slowly) if given some time.
foreglow
the old moon sliver
hangs branch framed
in white pine pins
and looking out to scout the day
I know the birds will fly in soon
to perch and wait
for signals from some
fulcrum’s tip
then swoop to take their food
but now there is no color
in the rising sky
the light shape cold
and wrong
time almost shrunk
and hope waned with it
until a shoulder glance behind
reveals a spreading rose
across the pond and to the west
a foreglow gift of elder mornings
stoking up the sky
first morning
the world is wearing snow
and early morning tracks
curve down from thicket
to the brook
imagination wishing fox
resigned to squirrel
doves and jays arrive
the platform feeder full
it took a while to lace
warm boots with pjs tucked
then clearing step and path
of weightless white
which even now begins
to fly from coated trees
as spoil sport winds
step up their game
a dove remains
breast puffed among the seeds
they gobble down so much
but do not stay
to crack and eat
(anticipating husk heaps
deep in the woods
come thaw or spring)
a friend is coming soon
to break new trail with us
ecstatic dogs and
snowshoes joining evidence
of daybreak journeys
annotating
this first morning
the sound that quiet makes
this day of gratitude
is warm
wrapped with a hush
across the wild place
outside my door
hours lived at stop action pace
intermixed with grace note quiet moments
two horses graze across the road
jay scrabbles punctuating feeder flights
cars mostly absent never missed
trees almost bared
their shapes old friends
I look out to woods and placid beaver ponds
where birds flicker as small animals move
darting in counterpoint to anchored brown
such richness.
such richness in this temporary state
layerings of memory and love
not quite speaking underneath the flow
from earth to foot to heart
gravity confounded by life
flowing to the sky
and thanks are offered up
long shadow morning
the day starts clear
and weather sits the fence
undecided voter between
sultry and first frost
the hummingbirds have gone
and small flocks pulse
from ground to tree to air
some landing in the shelter
of my apple tree
across the road bright reds
appear to punctuate
short timer green
the usual pangs are there
as warmth and light
begin to turn away
but less robust somehow
each summer moment’s heat
soaked into bone and soul
defense against regret
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for me seasonal change has always been about being observant, and the aggregation of small events. september has a clear, long slanting light. my favorite month.
witness
morning light slants through spring woods
and the grass grows green again
three blue bags of roadside trash
and the grass grows green again
air is soft at dark’s approach
and the grass grows green again
screams of trees ripped from the earth
and the grass grows green again
early birdsong noisy joy
and the grass grows green again
news of rising hate brings dread
and the grass grows green again
summer stars the hunter gone
and the grass grows green again
prayers whispered for the world
and the grass grows green again
truth is not a skin we shed
and the grass grows green again
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Day 26. A call and response poem.
pole stars
outside an open window
long slanting bones of morning light
stretch out across new green
and under petal floats
my mind’s eye leaping past
advancing spring
to still brown woods
snowdrops hanging white in quiet
broken only by the calls of jays
or arcing cardinal voice
I ache for home
those starker hills
and life lived on a wilder scale
with brook flow ambient song
in counterpoint
to raven growls and beaver slaps,
the shouting silence of the stars
that touch my trees
small-hours communion with the moon
cupped softly by the dark,
my homeward journey’s pull is strong
yet it will still be hard to leave
a house so filled with love
and people of my bones,
twin pole stars
anchoring the heart
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I love and miss my adult children and their respective clans and look forward to the chance to share their lives. Yet after a day or two the siren call of home begins its chant, and I am torn, no less grateful for these gifts.
Life With Horace 