Tag: birds

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Natural Events

Fog covers the town

or so I’m told

by those who tell.

Another natural event

that enlivens my heart

like the gathering of starlings

and the whoosh of them going,

the V of geese flying over

announcing themselves noisily.

Sunrise, sunset, the turn of the leaves.

The call of the elusive Kingfisher

and the cry of the hawk.

All of these simple miracles

tell me a secret I already knew

but love to be told again and again:

this life is a Russian doll

nested with gifts inside gifts

down to the tiniest prize

of the wren calling 

Good Morning! 

to anyone who will listen.

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Prayer

I’ve come home, it seems.

Returned again to the place of my heart

where I’ve wandered before

with my stalwart companion.

The place where my spirit soars

and his runs free, ears flying.

I wonder, if I could no longer walk

for whatever reason

whether I might find such a place

within myself.

Could I, would I rise to the challenge?

People do, I’m told.  They rise.

People break and yet carry on.

Could I?  Or rather, would I?

I pray to the trees, the creek and the dawn,

the chickadee, the kingfisher and the heron

that I never need learn the answer.

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Go & Do

Windows shuttered against the cold one hears

so little at least at this late morning hour

when the birds have finished their early morning

chorus and all others have gone about their

quotidian business of work and school, etc.,

while I sit up amongst the walnut leaves

reluctant to go and do, knowing that

going and doing will be rewarding,

knowing that every piece of this chilly

bright autumn day could be terribly rewarding

oh so knowing it and feeling it and already

convinced beyond one little straw of that

and so, go and do I shall.

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The Folly of Hope

A morning as still as death

covered in heavy white shroud

lackluster hum of dying crickets

occasional word from the neighbor’s

chickens broken finally by the

persistent song of one fully living

cardinal telling his real story

to whomever will listen hoping

for whatever it is cardinals hope for

if hope is what they do contrary to

what I am told with a shake of the

head, oh no, birds do not have a

thing in them called Hope.

Only humans pursue such folly.

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Au Naturel

Big branch of that old redbud tree split away

gave up the ghost at last in this dry hot summer.

But now it lies horizontally stretched across

behind the bird feeder offering many perches

for the cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, jays

and yes, starlings who come to visit and eat.

I cannot help but feel it makes a pretty

sculptural addition to the yard and having

no chainsaw anyway why not leave it just

as it is, au naturel, in the way of the woods

that I do so love, where whole trees fall,

the creek erodes its banks,

and all is ever changing?

Until it falls completely down

whyever not?

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A-scampering

And so we trip along the paths of wood and meadow

taking in everything, the call of the pileated woodpecker

sending a ruffle of ahhhhh! through my body

the light in the trees the cool touch of the morning air

the rasping of cicadas, the scampering of my two dogs

the wild devotion with which they apply themselves

to this quotidian place as if they have never ever ever been

here before, as if every leaf and stem is brand new

as if Life itself has just this moment burst open in them

and sent them rocketing down the path.