In the depth of the night, a concerto commenced,
With drums of thunder and a melody of rain.
Wind flutes played loud sniveling notes,
Carrying pulsating tunes in blustery tones.
Streaks of lightening, with their baton of light,
Led the blasting orchestra with dynamic might.
Trees swayed wildly, leaves scattered with force,
Rain soaked the paths, shattering dense shadows.
As dawn tiptoed, with the sun’s gentle caress,
Melodic whistles, cheeps and croaks took the stage.
Blue bonnets danced, greeting butterflies and bees,
Jays and cardinals capered under the radiant trees.
Hummingbirds frolicked around the buds of paintbrush,
Grackles called out in an enthusiastic rush.
Scissor-tailed flycatchers hovered, tails unfurled,
Charmed their mates with their squeaks and chirrs.
Pinkladies and Firewheels in their spectacular array,
Welcomed the day, luring pollinators their way.
The storm disappeared, giving way to a tranquil zephyr,
Joyfulness prevailed, in awe of Mother Earth’s endeavor.
Silvan black
Come the grackles
Shimmering blue streaks
Darting toward the sound
Of bird song glee
Bullies
In Zorro garb
Storm the bird feeder
Black darts
Flung at swaying targets
Challenging
The squirrels reign.
Sparrows
Root for the stalking cat
To strike
Leap high
A streak of red
Upon the sylvan black
'News' may simply be
an acronym,
North, East, West, South,
Space-time continuum
Headlines capture minds—
Imagine the water cooler buzz
if the front-page news was:
"A Plague of Grackles!"
"A Murder of Crows!"
"A Conspiracy of Ravens"
"A Parliament of Owls"
Bird's-eye views of
All that's news!
Start with words
pick up their sticks
make a now-man.
No eyes yet,
maybe the garden grackles
will peck out some.
Life at this hour needs a password.
There are boxes to tick, negotiations
to be made
with an ill-defined self.
It's morning already
the sun is glaring blue
on the hard silent snow.
Going to need a key that perfectly fits
a gated community,
a playground, a parking lot, a dog park,
any door that opens
all those dark spaces hidden inside
unlit clouds,
and at this time
there are no further
instructions
available.
Grackles snap at the thin snow
seeking frozen worms.
Balloons of light pop in a chill sky.
A marmalade cat sneaks the hedgerow
fur low in the snow whiskers sparkling.
Hawk cries grab our attention
high up we are spotted, some targeted.
Grackles, cat, and the shadow of my coat
scatter sideways sketching frost-ghosts
on warm breaths.
The summer has thickened,
it has turned the hare into a dervish,
the raccoon to a pantomime villain,
made mice sing in the beaks of owls.
The woods are bare now
trees rattle, grackles cackle,
blue Ice chimes in the deep freeze.
Witches flirt and flit
They have skeleton corsets,
they ride upon racks of lamb.
Their mousy, grey moon petticoats
are tattered by thorns.
By December the land crunches
under tread, the snow creaks
like a an unearthed catacomb.
Reckless children are lost
In the rumors of dark folktales.
The year turns, tinder burns,
lovers remember an inner climate
where limbs blush
when kissed by a kindness
as soft as sunlit rain.
Now and then, and yet again,
clouds circle a bright fanlight
of sky.
Seasons return only to sail
on by.
Grackles
I rambled along a city street
Going nowhere with no one to meet.
When I espied grackles in a tree,
Stretching and heckling between the leaves.
Purplish headed, black feathered beings.
Perched on the branches, stately and free.
Undaunted by my drawing nearer,
Their yellow eyes traced my demeanour.
And when I stopped to observe the plague,
While standing ‘neath the foliage shade,
They dropped to the ground and hopped around
Searching for bugs and seeds to swallow down.
Other birds in the vicinity
Colourfully dressed and singing brightly
Flitted about but could not drown out
The grackles’ cacophony here about.
Their corny antics invoked my senses
To marvel that such creatures existed.
And as I continue my dreary way,
In this world of bland human display,
I think of them enjoying summer
Filling my heart with spirited wonder.
And chuckle to myself by chance to see
Grackles basking in tall broadleaf trees.
This week our play at self-distancing and living amid a pandemic became real. Before the empty shelves and cancelled events were annoying but we had sufficient toilet paper to last a good while and there was Tiger King on Netflix. Then too the reduced traffic and cheap gas were unexpected bonuses although there was really no place to go.
But the news of the deaths at a nursing home in Ontario’s cottage country and the tweets this morning from people who were unable to be with loved ones as they died, and then faced with a ceremony less cremation or burial have brought the stark face of mortality too our doorsteps.
Meanwhile life goes on, it’s a beautiful sunny day outside and as I hung the laundry, grackles were busy building nests in the cedars and the first snowdrops and fall garlic were poking through the soil. The garden will need clearing this afternoon and life goes on while life goes on.
Be well and stay safe.
Birds seen flying together in large flocks tonight
Words of warning sounds emit as coos and cackles
Herds of cows start running toward the barn door light
Blurred together as a murder of black crows and grackles
1/15/20
From my poem " A Terrifying Night" written 1/13/20
Contest: Arbitrium Divisa 6 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Gregory R Barden
Waiting for the light to change
(A busy urban street),
I noticed quite a gathering
Not far from my two feet.
Upon a sewer grate I saw
Some starlings pecking ‘round
Although I didn’t even
See a crumb upon the ground.
Their beaks dipped down, oblivious
To passersby or wheels,
Intent on filling up on what,
To them, comprises meals.
A couple flew away, replaced
By new ones in a flash,
Not plentiful as pigeons but
On city streets, as brash.
*the original title of this poem was "grackles on a grate,"
but when i googled to confirm that the birds i saw were,
indeed, grackles, i discovered they were starlings.
poetic license only goes so far...
Wings monger air.
A host of defrocked preachers
buckle and swag.
Mobs clique and crowd in clusters.
Grackles,
skip, jump, and plunder on.
The birds pilfer, promenade,
scrum, pluck,
lift off swearing
in an avian Yiddish.
Heaven is rocked
by their thimble-sized storms.
The Great Hall of the People, Beijing.
Mozart tonight.
After the opera,
she appears above us,
stepping out of
a Chinese painting of heaven.
She is the Queen of the Night,
an Ibis arriving amid grackles.
After the performance
she descends into the foyer.
Camera’s whir, we press forward
to glimpse her.
A delicate Chinese girl.
We are stunned once more
by the power of the beautiful
to command our devotion.
This is her moment,
her Jupiter symphony
and perhaps her Requiem.
Where does she go from here?
Nothing can ever match this.
The powerful will be suspicious
of her art,
her vision of a world beyond,
blood stained
Tiananmen Square.
Just outside my window,
As I sip my morning tea,
The crossroads of the local bird world,
Rain or shine, is there to see.
It dangles from a shepherd’s crook,
A dear friend gifted me.
Squirrels climb up to have a look,
Then scamper off, seeds spraying loosely.
Cardinals, jays, chickadees and sparrows,
Flock there for my view.
So do flickers, grackles, finches and juncos,
Mourning doves and yes two ducks waddling by too!
It’s the only one in my neighborhood,
Though I wish others would.
It took so long to attract them,
With just the seeds that could.
They found the pricey pistachio feed quite grand,
Settling into a pampered rut,
And totally ignored the bargain brand,
What choosy beggars – we’ve settled on one with peanuts.
I wonder at the variety,
Even pigeons and gulls find this suburban yard,
And marvel at the lack of propriety,
From birds that get only seed, no lard.
They squabble with their own kind,
Yet like humans are patient with winged cousins.
It makes no sense to my mind,
But I’m glad for their cheery company by the dozens.
M. Renee Taylor
3-19-17
The pigeons bob their heads and strut
And pause to do some pecking.
Their throaty conversations
Interfere not with their trekking.
A sudden startle sets them
With a flutter in the air.
Ten seconds later they alight,
Unbothered by the scare.
Their iridescent necks dig deep
Into their feathers, scratching,
Perhaps to loosen bugs which likely
Might have been attaching.
The sparrow and the grackles
Let the pigeons do their thing
And neither seem to notice
When the other group takes wing.
Although they’re nicknamed “rats with wings”
(An epithet quite mean),
The pigeons certainly belong
As part of New York’s scene.
It started with the usual
crows, grackles, starlings,
even the chickadees
were appropriately capped.
Broken up a bit by
a red winged blackbird
and again by cardinal.
But in the woods,
early Mourning Cloaks flitted
while a turkey vulture
circled overhead.
Our black dog plunged
into the ice free pond
but the tawny only dabbled,
then both soaked
the bottom of my jeans.
On a nearby clothesline
a little black dress flapped,
as winter’s hair was shorn
from newly silky legs.
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