It’s hard to let go of National Poetry Writing Month. Last night I was glad to watch an array of people reading a stunning array of poems to close out the month and help raise funds for poetry in the schools and other good causes. Thank you Academy of American Poets for that fine ending to April.
I sat awhile today watching the birds. I finally made a list (see at the end of this) and found I had identified by sight sixteen species of birds in just a couple hours and it was a good thing. Beautiful songs, varying behaviors, coming to the little space where I provide food and water with lots of places for them to hang out safely. I was quite honored by their presence, humbled really. There’s so much good and beauty in the world if we stop and look for it.
The still light of afternoon
shimmering with song, of
so many birds. I weep
for their colors, for knowing
their names, that they come
here to my tiny yard.
Perhaps the clatter of life grinds
but here we are and I am
second coffee to the left
a hedgerow of spent daffodils
separating me from the road
So much today is flying
even the sotto voce clouds
even as they whisper by
Below: Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Baltimore Orioles.
I saw:
- Ruby-throated hummingbirds
- Red-bellied woodpecker
- Downy woodpecker
- Blue jay
- Black-capped chickadee
- Tufted titmouse
- White-breasted nuthatch
- Gray catbird
- American robin
- House finch
- White-crowned sparrow
- Baltimore orioles
- Red-winged blackbird
- Common grackle
- Northern cardinal
- Rose-breasted grosbeak
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