Category Archives: nature poem

Dining with the Woodpeckers

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pileated suet

While visiting my brother and his wife this summer in East Aurora, New York, we experienced a truly wonderful and unexpected visit from three pileated woodpeckers at the suet feeder Jim had filled. His wife, Paulett, said the woodpeckers were frequent visitors to their lovely back garden. This was a first for me. Although I’ve been an on again, off again birdwatcher for most of my adult life, I’ve only seen one pileated woodpecker in person before. Seeing three at the same time was simply brilliant. Watching their acrobatics as they fed on the suet, flew back and forth to peck at a tree, and generally manoeuvered their rather large bodies in amazinglying agile ways was pure delight. After a feeding frenzy, they flew away and it felt amazingly still and empty where they had been. Much like a visit with beloved family and friends, the ‘after’ part comes all too soon and leaves a void in our hearts. This poem is dedicated to Jim and Paulett, two of the kindest and most caring people I know. Thank you for sharing your home, your family and your amazing woodpeckers with us.

pileated 5

Dining with the Woodpeckers

In the late August garden
The quiet afternoon now

Comes to a languorous close.
Out of nowhere, a flash of red,

Bright scarlet crests crowning
Zebra-patterned feathers.

Three Pileated woodpeckers
Begin to feast at the suet feeder,

Fluttering, flying tree to tree,
Tree to feeder, alternately

Pecking at thick maple bark,
Then shifting to soft silky suet.

The youngest, now the size of its parents,
Joins in to grab his share, and father

And mother dutifully give way.
For a few Cirque des Oiseaux moments

All three woodpeckers hang right side up
And upside down, their brilliant red heads

Flash like stop lights in the early evening sun.
We sit around the table eating an early supper

And sipping local wine. Conversation drifts
As we watch in these avian acrobatics.

Just as quickly as they arrived, so soon are
They are gone. More wine is poured,

Seconds of hot buttered corn and fresh
Heirloom garden tomatoes are passed

From one to the other. Like the birds,
We share this meal together, enjoying

The richness of what the day has given.
A light wind blows the leaves outside,

A beautiful evening for us to be together
Knowing that summer will end all too soon.

Picture by Beth Brandkamp

Picture by Beth Brandkamp

Daybreak (2)

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Yes, this is the second time you’ve seen this picture in my blog. It was posted with a poem, Daybreak, in late August and now it reappears to accompany a second poem it also inspired, Daybreak II. A single picture on paper, on the screen or in the memory has a powerful, persuasive control of our imagination. This beautiful photo by my friend and photographer, Yolanda Litton, has done just that.

 

Early Morning at Bagnegrole (Photograph by Yolanda Litton)

Early Morning at Bagnegrole (Photograph by Yolanda Litton)

I’ve included an audio clip of me reading the poem. Click on the link below and wait a few seconds.

 

 

Daybreak  (2)

 

Waking up in at daybreak in the south of France
Is as if I were stepping into someone else’s life.

So far from my own home, this wistful morning fog
Rises slowly to reveal a house of soft honeyed stone.

The slope of a sharply pitched roof holds a tall chimney
Where the swifts are now resting after a long evening hunt.

Somewhere a rooster crows with the energy that only
The young can bring to a new day. Out of nowhere,

A soft gray cat tip-toes by, looks up at me and blinks
Its eyes in that inscrutable feline way and disappears.

I stand here leaning on the windowsill, wondering
What my life would be like had I been born here.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts up from
The kitchen below. One lone church bell rings

Calling its faithful to prayer. But nature’s beauty
Is my religion, my serenity, my salvation, my Eden.

 

 

 

Four Autumn Haiku

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Today is the first day of autumn, and for my writing practice in the next few weeks I’ll begin a series of autumn or fall poems. This is my favorite season, my soul season. I’ve done a few different types of haiku ranging from traditional 17 syllables to a poem in a single line. Do you have a favorite?

1.

biting into a Victoria plum, such guilty pleasure

253871

2.

spent blossoms–
the last swallowtail
sips alone

best swallowtail pic

3.

soup 1

the season’s first soup
almost ritually cooked
stirs our senses

4.

sweet windfall apples…
bruised memories
autumn of long ago

fallen apples

Modern English language haiku are not always seventeen syllables. A haiku can be many things, but always it is a brief poem with a strong image that evokes a season and a moment of time captured simply in lyrical language. Scroll to the bottom of today’s blog to find a list of essential qualities of haiku.

The following list from the wonderful journal, Heron’s Nest, lists important qualities that make a haiku.

 Here are some qualities we find essential to haiku:

  • Present moment magnified (immediacy of emotion)
  • Interpenetrating the source of inspiration (no space between observer and observed)
  • Simple, uncomplicated images
  • Common language
  • Finding the extraordinary in “ordinary” things
  • Implication through objective presentation, not explanation: appeal to intuition, not intellect
  • Human presence is fine if presented as an archetypical, harmonious part of nature (human nature should blend in with the rest of nature rather than dominate the forefront)
  • Humor is fine, if in keeping with “karumi” (lightness) – nothing overly clever, cynical, comic, or raucous
  • Musical sensitivity to language (effective use of rhythm and lyricism)
  • Feeling of a particular place within the cycle of seasons

The First Coyote

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The First Coyote

Shadowed by trees, it was alert,
Watching those on the porch.
Tall, thin, a knife sharp gaze,
This coyote knew its way around.

The startled man cradled the cat
And called the nervous dogs back
Inside the house, far away from
This lurker in the evening woods.

Was it waiting for a squirrel or
Rabbit? You couldn’t tell this far
Away, yet clearly it was patient
And after tonight’s dinner.

How else could it survive
If not for foraging here and
There, waiting for a quick
Capture, meat for a day or two.

This was the first coyote seen
In the neighborhood, and now
I open the window late at night
To listen to it sing to the moon.

 

Heartwood

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A friend and former teaching colleague of mine, Patti Hardee Donnelly, is a superb photographer whose work I’ve long admired. A small offshoot of her photography has been her finding small HEARTS in many forms in nature and in life. I am often surprised, frequently amused, and always delighted by what Patti comes across in her daily life. This summer she posted this beautiful picture of an old tree stump she came across very early one morning on her daily run. I was mesmerized by the beauty of it, the color and texture and most of all by the image I saw within the heart. I know that if I had been walking that path that morning, I would have totally missed this beautiful creation of nature.

Thank you, Patti, for your amazing photo and talent. It immediately inspired me to write this poem, which is dedicated to you.

I’ve recorded an audio of me reading this poem. To hear it, simply click on the link below. It will take a few seconds before it begins.

 

Heartwood (photo by Patti Hardee Donnelly © 2014)

 

Heartwood
                        ~for Patti Hardee Donnelly

 

This heartwood is no more
Than a bit of grey crackling,
More a silvered wood fungus

Than what was once the lifeline
Of a tree, an umbilical hotline
From the sun to the leaves

Down to roots fastened in earth.
Now this aging heart of wood
Reveals elegant scalloped wings,

An angel dancing, a floor
Made of rough pine straw
Softening her delicate steps.

In the silence of morning,
I glimpsed an angel,
But you found her heart.