*Goodreads giveaway of The Swan Bonnet until June 2 "
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This month I’m re-publishing three bird poems. Birds inspired poetry besides two of my
novels with young protagonists. Birds
fit poetic subjects for me because they are so varied in their lifestyles and
mating habits, to be compared with people.
I haven’t said much about poetry in my blog although I’ve
written it over the years and contributed to journals. I guess I feel poetry speaks for itself. However, I believe we are in a renaissance of
poetry. Contemporary poetry, for me, is
as valid and astounding as any poetry ever written.
So in celebration of the season, three poems.
Cedar
waxwings
 |
| Image courtesy of Ron Bird/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Was
thinking
how
tidings
of the
city were shooed off
when I saw
a pirate
eyepatch
on a bough
crooking its twigs.
Cedar
waxwing
and
another
wearing
shades
like a
fender on the forehead
and soon a
gang
of
waxwings have landed
lurking
in the
yard trees.
Still they
are
doorknob-small
and gray
having the
sinister
switchblade
quickness of
keys at
dusk.
In a
second
the time
of
a shriek
or a
shooing
they've
sped
like
passing suspicions
into
newsprint on the
sallow
sky.
First published in streetcake
 |
| Image published courtesy of Christian Meyn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
14
karat hummingbird
Ready to
sit and shimmer
she
watches
him in a luxurious gust
buds and rubies
overlapped
it’s a
Christmas kind of occasion
her
subdued
He zooms large and near
he zaps
himself small and far.
Under neon waterfalls
girls go out downtown
nights.
By daylight the guy’s
taillights
flash from lane to lane.
Shopping
she ponders
what’s keeping them
apart.
Time is jewel-studded
and ticking
when a hummingbird
finangles in the sun
dangling
like filigree.
Decided as the lover
rushing
with
a charged diamond
somersaulting out of
a small velvet casket.
Just so
two upwardlies understand their swiftness
and the
honey and the oh-so-lengthened letdowns.
First published in Ygdrasil
Blue
heron
 |
| Image published courtesy of Michael Elliot /FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
blue heron
on the
island circumference
of a
garage where
the
settler this side
of the bay
squatted
duck
hunting a circle
traced
around him
the
naiad-mystic
ripples
humming from
the cool
cauldron
one
heron one rock
one cloth
of moss
one
pine one boat
one
man one duck
one wild
onion
one
heron one leg
one
fish one water
one
a lookout
raised
himself
from
the
shrinking
boundaries
area of an
office
area of a
sunroom
of a stilty
fir
sinking in
marsh silt
and the
waves
fish scale
lustrous
where we
sisters paddle
with
lengthened
arms lake-brisked eyes
canoe-logging
along
to see the
heron
the
remembered closely
from the
spindle
the blue
heron whirs
spins
adrift cloud
of sky
camouflage
First published in Ygdrasil
