Three Bird Poems

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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