Texas Bobcat—quiet resident of nearly every county,
you move through forests, plains,
and the edges of our neighborhoods
with the ease of an animal built to belong anywhere
concealment remains.
Your coat—tawny and mottled, with faint bars and scattered spots~
mirrors the muted colors of scrub and stone.
Tufted ears lift like alert punctuation,
your short tail flicks its small, decisive signal,
and your muscular frame carries
the steady confidence of a medium-sized hunter.
While we sleep behind walls and windows,
you cross rocky ledges, wooded corridors,
and even urban green spaces with practiced silence.
Your senses read the dark for rabbits, rodents, birds~
and sometimes the bold chance of larger prey.
Unseen and adaptable, you are proof
that wildness still threads itself
through North Texas—alert, enduring,
and entirely at home.
nightingle warbles…
gliding on its tufted veil
to serenade trees
~
from huff puff of wind
songbird tweets fancier tunes ...
in autumnal dance
such sweet sound i hear
both side of my bread buttered ~
song of tufted titmouse
" We can learn lessons from nature." by poet
I feel the need to relax today
As I sit outside on this sunny day
I try to let all my stress slip away
I can feel the sunny rays warm my soul
As my worries gently slide off and roll
I am no longer worried about things
As a butterfly flutters its wings
and watch it dip in blooms and out it springs
A bee joins with pollen laden legs
The butterfly gently protects its eggs
A light warm breeze tickles my nose
with sweet perfumes of a freshly bloomed rose
A hummingbird zips by and feeds from blooms
Another one joins as they zip and zoom
Embracing the moment, not feeling gloom
A tufted titmouse flies past my chair
And lands at the feeders, singing with flair
He feeds and sings without any care
A moment in nature is all I need
To enjoy life at a much calmer speed
Oh hypnotize, yon fields of grace,
your supple stems in wind’s embrace
and fill your scent my breathing space,
in sunlit rows and shadows
mid fuzzy hum in meadows.
Ahh bloom, dear blossoms, lavender!
Intoxicate the atmosphere;
a dalliance with yesteryear.
Do sway with rhythm blowy
sweet fleurs petite and showy,
do sway and let selves undulate
with air in rhythm celebrate
along with songs of windchimes, faint.
Oh dance, yes dance young breezes!
Romance the plume that teases
and reaches for the gold in skies,
where sylphs of sunset fraternize
as earth and heavens fantasize
of flowy ballerinas.
For gods a panacea
and too, my muse, as fingers sweep
the silk of petals on spikes steep
to wake my dreams that were asleep.
For long they lay forgotten
their silver-gleam stems trodden.
Oh rise in rhythm, wind! Do rise,
and gift my voice a tryst with chimes,
recite with lilt soprano rhymes...
Make smooth my pulse to groove through veins
like lavender in tufted waves
...and wind, let whirl the rooster’s vane.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There once was a pumpkin-spiced squirrel Edwina, quite stout
Who on Halloween did shout, "I'll be airborne, no doubt!"
With a whisk-twitch squirrelly spell
She rode her broomstick quite well—
Over the forest and thereabouts, anywhere, her favorite route.
Her panadas stash fueled her yearly, shadowy flight,
As she zipped through the oak-shadows until daylight
Upon her tail-tufted steed—
She was a magnificent rodent indeed!—
Edwina owned the sky, the corvids scattering in sheer, nutty fright.
There are towel-drying winds.
parks grow soggy with small dogs.
May is an old man riding a bike backwards.
It is oil for the broken engine in the barn.
Wetness folds this way and that
the sky unzips a larkish sunshine.
We hear nestlings in their reservoirs of dew.
New life bubbles in puddles,
the green and tufted arrive out of nowhere,
boys' fish for skittish girls,
beryl buds swell, unclasp and curl.
An early spring morning is greeted with a robin’s song
A delightful chorus inviting other songbirds to sing along
In his chorus of “cheery, cherry, tut, tut” sounds
From a robin happily singing and dancing on the ground
A chickadee perches at the feeders to watch the show
And stops to eat some seeds before letting his music flow
He sings his chorus of “chick -a dee-dee-dee-dee-dee”
And continues his chirping for all the other songbirds to see
A red cardinal starts to sing to make his presence known
With a loud “cheer, cheer, cheer, tweet- cheer” not to be out shown
He’s perched high on a tree branch in vibrant feathers for all to see
His mate now lands on his branch and joins his chorus perfectly
A tufted titmouse is now perched on the bird feeder pole
Singing “peter, peter, peter” sounds as his loud whistles roll
Now the birds have all left after their cheery morning serenade
Hopeful tomorrow may bring another delightful songbird parade
Let off a lead,
freedom bounds
as if all joy is held
within a bouncing ball
to be retrieved
and brought back to lay
at a lover's feet. Then
sent off to do again.
Smells wafting
from tree trunks,
fence posts and tufted grass
flood the air with molecules
sending canine bladders
into spasm eager
to mark the moment
as their own.
Focussed on what is firm
beneath their feet,
every nerve they have
is wired to ‘now’
whilst I, looking on,
try and retrieve phantoms
bouncing across what was
and what is yet to come.
The high moors slant giddily over gritstone edges
where torrents overflow gallons of sky.
Grouse are blown sideways
by a bone-twisting gale.
The land is harried by fishtailing winds,
a sparse tufted earth blown beyond its roots.
In the valley, cats crouch; dogs snap the air
their barks as full as storm-drains.
Torrid echo’s outrun stampeding frights.
In the village pub,
locals move away from the smoke grimed
rattling windows,
gather around a coal fire in the taproom,
speak about past storms, compare and contrast.
Street sparrows survive
by doing what they always do,
though nobody knows how, what or where.
Cheeva; cheeva; cheeva.fer-da; fer-da; fer-da here; here; here peter-peter-peter. - Tufted Titmouse’s call
Sing a song
Way is long
Miles to go
Smile along.
Bare the soul
No, no foul
Be free to go
It’s a long haul.
Worry not for words
Listen to sweet birds
Now you know
Love is not words.
Today is best
Until the rest
Hope you know
To live with zest.
A low wind
prowls like a tiger in the long reeds.
Water rats race across a brook
creating arrowheads
through the stream.
From a tufted hillock
I watch small fish darting,
chasing edibles
too small for eyes to see.
The fish have no name
that I can recall.
For an instant
I too am nameless,
both lost and found.
Now the wind tugs at my coat,
dragonfly-wings flicker-by –
an iridescent perception
that glimpses only itself,
a presence that is both found
and lost.
With her tiny tummy rumbling, she stood quaking in the wood that surrounded her dear father's dairy farm. The white, porcelain bowl and the silver spoon lay on the ground, along with her scrumptious cottage cheese. So hungry was she, and that black, furry arachnid was still giggling, dangling above her tufted chair. She felt a tantrum coming on. She was so mad with hunger. Little Molly stamped her feet and stormed back to her cushioned seat, and ate that mean, old tarantula up!
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
There came a big spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
This woodland stream could be a small English river,
it dibbles and dabbles, it meanders, and has the air
of an old water way, one that never saw the need
to rush or gush.
The small ripples pace themselves; a sepia rivulet
that tugs at a nutrient silt, carrying it down gently
to green pastures.
In autumn the fallen leaves add ocher flotillas
that sail into valley mists, never to return.
April showers refresh the brook,
it waltzes between tufted hillocks,
glides almost giddily between sky and earth.
If the path of the water flow has a name
it is known only to grazing cattle,
that drink of it,
and the meadow lark
that hovers high above the little beck
to sing of its native wandering ways.
I hear them through the window when
I try to sleep, but rarely can;
owls calling, echoing through the night.
only two species will appear,
at least those are the ones I hear,
the Barred and Great Horn, hidden from my sight.
The Barred cried out, “Who cooks for you?!”
as if on a musical que,
a refrain it sings safe within the dark.
I sometimes see them in the day,
their dish-shaped faces strange and gray,
blend with the trees as if they were a part.
The Great Horn hoots, lower, heavy,
sounds almost hypnotic to me,
brings gravitas quite fitting to its size.
With tufted crown, a tree monarch,
their louder calls gives me a start,
sadly, so far, I’ve never seen one fly.
There are others, the books do preach,
the Barn, the Grey, the tiny Screech,
but so far they’ve not come around my house.
Hollywood uses them for fright,
yet somehow I don’t think that’s right,
and realize every time I heard them 'round
that all the darkness people fear,
that we hide from when it draws near,
are just the norm for the owls aloft,
a time to make their bellies full,
the dark nothing you can’t handle,
and that, I find, is a comforting thought.
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