Day Two NaPoWriMo

 

Every hawk is Beauty.

No other name is required.

Just a murmur of beauty,

along the fields, riding the air currents

freezing the squirrel, beauty

when everything else is absent.

It's National Poetry Month

It's been several years since I wrote a poem a day for poetry month but I think I'll try this month. A bloggy little poetry thing. At school, all my classes have final projects that involve writing so why not a few more words?

Here's day one:

01 April 2023

I forget that the blue isn’t always metaphor
sometimes it is just the residual shadow
of the cloud or a bird that has decided the corner
of my eye is the best nest.

Three random blooms

The forsythia has three random blooms
a yellow flame at the end of the long, bare branch.
When the cardinal lands it's as though
it is playing with fire. If she wants to burn
she should visit the daffodils in the front
bed, full of bonfire trumpets flashing
and proclaiming spring.

The sky this morning was mottled.
Between the lines of white
was a message of bright blue
a note to look up, a song to begin.

The yard is not shy with its colors
and the birds are not shy
with their hymns this Sunday.
It is spring-like here, the day long
and the sky alive with cloud
and these fleeting notes:
grackle, starling, finch,
and disappearing into the indigo,
a Blue Jay raucous and more beautiful
than the sun.

Empire I want

After the snow day

The slow sun rises on a cold day
more gold than summer
though less molten, its hurry
facilitated by the geese
pond bond. Against the clouds
holding storm each goose belly
above me is also gold, less finch
more empire I want to live in

As the day ended, clear, the sun
sizzled orange, through the trees
blackbirds streamed behind
their path nuanced, fine.
Each feather sent its own song
a breeze across a spiderweb,
a breeze on a breeze over leaves
left from daydream.

I stood my heart beating
to match theirs, my arms
awaiting wings.

The sky is shadowed by blackbirds

The wind has moved its family here, Gusty, Blowy, Freezing Breeze, and Hold Your Hat. They’ve come along with Bone Chill and occasional, Drizzle. When the sun does break past their defenses it is more like a kindergartener playing Red Rover with the upper grades it rarely gets through and then the taunting and tears begin. It is the new winter in Illinois – or what I know of winter here. Our one snow lasted a few days but that came before Solstice and surprised even the weather watchers, that snow was about six inches. There has been a dusting, a skiff of snow now and again but our main winter weather has been these cold winds and rain, a miserable combo if you must be out in it.

I’m back in school for the Spring semester. My 8 am class is Art History, Prehistoric to Gothic and the instructor started his first lecture today, he’s good at that – his banter has been painfully awkward and even he admitted, “I’m a shy person but I love this subject.” I think it’s a perfect first class for the beginning of the day. The room is very warm, so I hope the snoring is kept to a minimum for those students that struggle with the “early” hour.

I’ve been driving a new route in the morning, a little more winding through the countryside now. The sky is shadowed by blackbirds and here I pass the farm where murderers gather. Sometimes more than a dozen crows attend meetings above a barn in some old and very tall oak trees that seem to have grown just for these conferences. And the hawks! The hawks are the rulers of the roadside anywhere a perch can be made they are there, watching. Along the drive, I pass the fields that had corn this year and I have often seen turkeys hobnobbing as well. Another plus with this drive is I pass Randy’s Rescue Ranch in the morning. Rutabaga is not out at this time of day, but the horses are waiting patiently for volunteers to feed them. There is a draft mare who lives with a small golden gelding, and there is a pinto that arrived in the late fall. The only thing that would make the morning commute better is if I could stop and smell their necks on my journey; I’d leave earlier for that privilege.

Here's a picture of a fierce house finch that was not happy about sparrows hogging a feeder.

A new carol for the season

For something new and different, travel without an airport or sitting next to strangers. Jerry and I drove to Toronto for Christmas. It's only about ten hours from here. We planned the trip in early November and had planned to do a day trip to Niagara Falls one day, but as world travelers, we're always ready to shift and roll and change. And then the storm came, closing all of the Niagara areas as it was hammered with snow. Toronto got a little snow but heavy winds and it was very cold. Of course, things closed and we hunkered down. Then Jerry didn't feel well. And then things started to go downhill...so I've written a song about it, my song for Christmas. I can't wait to go back to Toronto, explore under better circumstances, and have dim sum in Chinatown. 

Happy new year, be safe, be kind, be well.

 

Didn’t the border agent say,
“Going to Toronto for something different, eh?”
With no idea how prophetic that would be…

The dogs at the doggy park
in boots and parkas
the Hockey Hall of Fame
decked out too, its

Christmas in Canada
with a winter bomb-cyclone
Christmas with Covid and you

The ice on Lake Ontario is shining
The hotel uncomfortably warm
The 4 am alarms and the weird overcharges
and the final night room change assured
We'd never try Christmas away from home again…

BUT it was Christmas in Canada
with a winter storm
Christmas with Covid

Christmas in Canada

though not the best Christmas 

but ... with .... you!

Deep, dark music

Last week I was closing the curtains at the end of the day, the end of light and a doe was tipping the bird feeder in the backyard like a kid trying to get that last peanut out of a box of crackerjacks. She froze as I came to the window and tried oh so nonchalantly to walk away. I’ve been wondering who or what has been busy emptying a few of these raccoon-proof feeders, and now I know.

Today I had to move that same feeder so I could see it from the desk in my office. It was windy and cold out, so I refilled all the feeders this morning and left a few hefty handfuls of seeds and peanuts around the yard then was rewarded with a series of little creatures visiting including this downy woodpecker.

Here’s a poem I read last night at the open mic for First Draft, one of the poems I wrote over the summer. I’ve got some poems bubbling about I can work on now.

How is the house so alive?
So much shifting during the day,
cracking into the night.

Skeleton and exoskeleton
within its walls muscle
& still thin bones
that are holding them
helped again by shingle
& shake or log filled
with mud or mud from
hard clay baked all-day
under the heat of the sun.

I want to believe we are its heart
but once built the house doesn’t need
us except for a little maintenance –
if the house is lucky to not be
poorly built or neglected – it does not need.
This house would be happy to shed
its skins and listen to the animals
& wind move through
with their deep, dark music.