Gnoshing in the marsh
beneath the summer skies,
smoked fish the blue plate special
to heron’s gulped surprise.
From ashen cloud an eagle’s
gravelly croak is heard:
“Can the presidential seal
be changed to coughing bird?”
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg,
braving the smoke from the west
hovering over Virginia.
Microbially small against the clouds,
a fearless speck of bird
whose fury I could feel
jetted in short,
tense,
jabbing
zig-zag;
the massive hawk,
wide-winged
sky stalker,
bucked,
twisted,
dodged.
I held my breath,
afraid, almost,
to think that
what matters
is not our size
but what we defend.
Goose armada:
what a
lotta.
Away and away,
unhidden,
a blast of song
spring-bidden,
across the pond,
a mile high,
bumping his head
against the sky,
a splotch of black
like India ink,
with baby leaves
nodding in sync,
bellowing heart
afire with life,
bright as his chevron,
half trumpet, half fife.
The world’s a big place,
it can tucker you out
when you’re trying to figure
what it’s about.
That doesn’t change much
as we age through the years,
those grass blades of life
still up to our ears.
We still need a wing
for safe featherbed,
but sometimes we rest
on a memory instead.
I’m not a big fan of Mothers’ Day, dear reader. However, I am a fan of mothering because mothering gets us started in life.
There are many who are not biological mothers but are mothers nonetheless. I salute every one, and I wish a happy day to all who mother.
On a more (typical) curmudgeonly note: you know, dear reader, I hate these geese; I do not thrill to see another generation. It is only with pained reluctance I am forced to say this snoozing fuzzball is maybe a little bit cute.
One
pierces the twilight
with incorrigible song
defiant
in the face of night.
A ponderous tired sun
pauses
in stately descent
to anoint the singer
with gold.
Hope is the thing with feathers,
according to the poet;
this wind-coiffed matted stalwart
is adamant to show it.
Waterlogged, bedraggled,
moroser by the hour,
he watches plashy pond,
indomitable and dour.
But persevering, patient,
resolute in attitude,
it isn’t raining rain, he says,
it’s raining fortitude.
I salute unpretty Hope,
my admiration bestirred:
it may be the thing with feathers,
but it’s surely a tough old bird.
With thanks to Emily Dickinson.
And to the purists I make no apologies for “moroser.”
It’s a poem. Ergo, poetic license.
Do they think they sing?
Can they be so deluded
to imagine their noise
sounds dulcet and fluted?
Do they look in the mirror
and see sweet warbling wrens?
What’s in their water —
hallucinogens?
Each blats like a semi
but thinks it’s a peep?
I ponder this nightly
in honk-battered sleep.
A bird in the hand
is better (it’s said)
than two in the bush,
but I’d say instead
that a bird in the bush
is the very best thing
when you long for a sign
there may one day be spring.
Yes, he is scarfed
and wearing his hat,
but his bright eye belies
any torpor in that.
He’s ready to nest,
and, oh, how he sings!
so sure is his heart
of seeds and of wings.
It seemed to me
miscalculation,
a frozen
discombobulation:
expecting spring
he here alighted
but found a landscape
winter-blighted.
With frosted beak
and bluebird fluff,
he groused (I heard him),
“Phoo! Enough!”
