Open your beak and
sing!
tra la la
tweet, tweet, tweet
hum, hum, hum
cheep! cheep! cheep!
from: Hooray For Birds
written and illustrated by Lucy Cousins
Candlewick Press, 2017
Here’s my next installment for National Poetry Month. This poem may sound like a flight of fancy, but it came from remembering that answerless question “if you could be any animal you want, what would you be”?
On a Wing and a Prayer
If I were a bird, I would not be an eagle
all beak and talons
snatching a mouse or a weasel.
If I were a bird, I would not be a crow
all black and murderous
waiting in branches above and below.
I would not be a swan, either
all graceful necked and gliding
around and around going yon and hither.
I might be wren or a junco
Or an Indigo Bunting
warbling wonder in backyard bushes
because I like the sounds of their names.
While I try to physically distance myself from all the bad and scary news out there and continue to hunker down and stay safe, I find myself sitting in front of my laptop for sometimes longish stretches. Since I have a wonderful view of the bird feeder, I’ve kept track of my feathered visitors.
Sparrows, too many to count! one kind with a white band around its neck and one more mottled
Tuffted titmouses (mice?)
Black Capped Chickadees (who might be considering the bird house, the same one the wrens rejected last year)
a pair of cardinals
a smallish woodpecker, I don’t know what kind
a pair of bluebirds (They were in the backyard. I get up and move around, sometimes!)
finches (red and yellow)
A hawk sometimes watches from a perch on one of the trees in the side yard.
squawky crows, too (of course, not on the feeder)
robins, naturally (also not on the feeder, pecking for worms, though)
Try this for wonderful information about birds: https://www.audubon.org/joy-of-birds
And this one to listen: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/how-to-learn-bird-songs-and-calls/ Tap the “Bird ID” tab at the top to find the bird you’re looking at and listen, too.
Lots of squirrels try to climb aboard the feeder, but mostly they stay on the ground and clean up the seeds the birds drop. Chipmunks travel up and down the downspout. They come out and fill their cheeks almost to bursting then scamper off to do damage in my garden. I’ve seen the holes they dug around the parsley just now trying to come back in full force.
My garden, such as it is, needs attention. I also keep promising my houseplants an outdoor vacation. Maybe next week.
Till then,
-—stay curious! (and dare to imagine)
sing!
tra la la
tweet, tweet, tweet
hum, hum, hum
cheep! cheep! cheep!
from: Hooray For Birds
written and illustrated by Lucy Cousins
Candlewick Press, 2017
Here’s my next installment for National Poetry Month. This poem may sound like a flight of fancy, but it came from remembering that answerless question “if you could be any animal you want, what would you be”?
On a Wing and a Prayer
If I were a bird, I would not be an eagle
all beak and talons
snatching a mouse or a weasel.
If I were a bird, I would not be a crow
all black and murderous
waiting in branches above and below.
I would not be a swan, either
all graceful necked and gliding
around and around going yon and hither.
I might be wren or a junco
Or an Indigo Bunting
warbling wonder in backyard bushes
because I like the sounds of their names.
While I try to physically distance myself from all the bad and scary news out there and continue to hunker down and stay safe, I find myself sitting in front of my laptop for sometimes longish stretches. Since I have a wonderful view of the bird feeder, I’ve kept track of my feathered visitors.
Sparrows, too many to count! one kind with a white band around its neck and one more mottled
Tuffted titmouses (mice?)
Black Capped Chickadees (who might be considering the bird house, the same one the wrens rejected last year)
a pair of cardinals
a smallish woodpecker, I don’t know what kind
a pair of bluebirds (They were in the backyard. I get up and move around, sometimes!)
finches (red and yellow)
A hawk sometimes watches from a perch on one of the trees in the side yard.
squawky crows, too (of course, not on the feeder)
robins, naturally (also not on the feeder, pecking for worms, though)
Try this for wonderful information about birds: https://www.audubon.org/joy-of-birds
And this one to listen: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/how-to-learn-bird-songs-and-calls/ Tap the “Bird ID” tab at the top to find the bird you’re looking at and listen, too.
Lots of squirrels try to climb aboard the feeder, but mostly they stay on the ground and clean up the seeds the birds drop. Chipmunks travel up and down the downspout. They come out and fill their cheeks almost to bursting then scamper off to do damage in my garden. I’ve seen the holes they dug around the parsley just now trying to come back in full force.
My garden, such as it is, needs attention. I also keep promising my houseplants an outdoor vacation. Maybe next week.
Till then,
-—stay curious! (and dare to imagine)
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