This summer we asked poets and photographers to let their creativity and verses take flight with the birds. We received an epic gaggle of submissions with birds of all shapes, sizes and varieties for what may be our most ambitious Muses' Gallery ever.
Enjoy!
Note - to true birders visiting this gallery, photos do not necessarily correspond to the specific birds mentioned in adjacent poems.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Bel Canto
By Carol Spielman Lezak
Highland Park, Illinois
| In the late morning
moonlight trills the dawn chorus
coloratura
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Pondering a Flock of Gulls
By Tim Phillipart
Holland, Michigan
| Maybe they are just asking,
“Where are you going for lunch?"
They discuss and holler,
poke and peck then,
in a show of unity,
fly off all together,
flapping and diving
for a dropped crust of bread.
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| James Paradiso, Photographer |
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Gulled
By Ellen Pickus
Baldwin, New York
| Yellow of eye and beak, tail black
with a white ring. They match their flock.
Their eyes have four cones to our three;
they see what we can never see.
Infrared vision presents a violet sky.
We’re cheated, gulled by an inferior eye.
That yellow beak, their brown-feathered babies—
what is it they perceive?
And whatever do we mean when we say
To see is to believe?
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Urban Birds
By Bethany Brownholtz
Chicago, Illinois
| Birds once perched on tree limbs,
now wiggle on long wires.
Tight rope walking in rows
or sitting, their dark heads
small bowling pins looming,
aching for a branch.
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| Christine Cianciosi, Photographer |
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Beginning as Friends
By Nina Bennett
New York City, New York
| I knew you from before. We had not shared much.
Our wings had never touched.
We re-shuffle ourselves,
new flocks forming to shed those girls who graduated early,
an array of bright feathers, joint plumage an affectionate hue,
we anticipate the next teenage transfiguration,
annunciation, adoration.
A welcoming circumstance,
starting over, altering myself,
I mean my route. It is not yet constructed.
Those roads not yet built.
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Bird Etheree
By Ann Lamas
Chicago, Illinois
| Wrens
singing
perched in line
on ledge's edge,
sirens' call to cats
who stare through paned windows
with larceny in their hearts.
Overhead geese fly, honking north,
three cats plot to extinguish birdsong
while geese circle tree shadows and worn stone.
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| Barbara Thurlow, Photographer |
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I Want to Write a Poem About Wrens
By Dennis Trujillo
Korea
First published in
The Storyteller
[Vol. 15, Dec 2010]
| There are already enough poems about robins
With their orange-red breasts and light blue eggs
And there are reams of verse about the symmetry
Of geese formations as they float across the horizon.
There is certainly no shortage of romantic poems
That pay tribute to the sweet songs of nightingales
And the existential angst of blackbirds has been
Well documented in dark rhyme throughout the ages.
But I want to write a poem about wrens
Which have been largely ignored. I want
To be the first to scrutinize the texture
And weave of wrens’ gray-brown feathers
And I want my poem to celebrate the chirps
Of wren congregations. As I create
The poem I want my heart to flutter
Like the wings of a wren so I can tell their story
With veracity and avoid disappointment
When their darting dark eyes reveal the verdict.
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haiku
By Joan McNerney
Ravena, New York
| Congregations of wrens
winging off to choral practice
stop at bird feeders first.
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| Kathy Lohrum Cotton, Photographer/Artist |
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Peacock
By Mary Jo Balistreri
Wisconsin
| a unique ruffled beauty, stands full
of himself. Blinded by his plumage
of blue-green iridescence, he struts
as if on stage, curtained on each side
by tropical green luxuriance.
He inhales the moist dark perfume
of undergrowth, basks in the sun’s
radiance, becomes his own
Dionysian dream, a chimeric reality.
Opening his fanned tail, he preens,
pivots in a slow circle, unaware—
at his beautiful peak that the apex
cannot hold forever.
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Bird Song
By Lois Baer Barr
Riverwoods, Illinois
| Birds will not speak in my poems.
I go out on limbs transfixed
by their caws, I try, try, try
transcribing their trills to no avail.
They warble. They whistle.
Tone deaf and wingless,
I fall and fail.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Early Birds
By Sheila M. Gagne
Deerfield, Illinois
| It begins again
at 4AM: A flock
of alarm clocks
in the beak
of a rising blue
tuck in the stars.
Their language
hurts in the dark
and you are no owl.
Incessant chirping
reminds you
that being nocturnal
cannot save
you from falling.
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haiku
by Charlotte Digregorio
Winnetka, Illinois
deep in the old growth
a downy woodpecker drums
to the warbler's trill
Haiku Society of America Midwest Competition, 2015
This award-winning haiku is on a metal plaque affixed to a boulder at the Holmes County Open Air Art Museum in Millersburg, Ohio
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| John James Audobon, Illustrator |
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A Puzzled Duck: words on a painting by Jamie M. Hansen
By Marjorie Rissman
Highland Park, Illinois
| at daybreak
by the shore of the pond
the duck curls into itself
hidden by dreams
by memories floating
among the reeds
colors kaleidoscope
the morning air
creating a jigsaw camouflage
motherhood waiting to happen.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Why I Want to Be a Wood Duck
By Carol L. Gloor
Savanna, Illinois
| I hatch hungry.
My mother is beautiful
in her crested cap,
white eye shadow,
pearly necklace circling
her grey neck.
She warmed me
in a tree nest
carved by a woodpecker.
She has both webs for padding
and claws for perching:
two pairs of shoes.
I get a good night's sleep
and in the morning
she is gone,
waddling through buzzing ground
to the water, calling me.
I jump--the only way.
I am too light to die,
float down through
swiveled sunlight,
drift through spring leaves
to a soft landing.
I follow her voice
to the water.
My webbed feet
already know to how to paddle.
My claws will come
when I need them.
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| Lynne Shayko, Photographer |
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| Frederick William Frohawk, Illustrator |
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What the Dodo Do?
By Arthur Miller
Highland Park, Illinois
O Joe, whatever happened to the Dodo?
Did it trip and fall off the planet or
Did some explorer core it and can it?
Hey Bill, is it true the Dodo has no bill?
I heard that once it could fly and peruse
Mauritius from a cloud bursting with clues.
Say Valerie, did the Dodo abandon flight for a salary?
Did it peck off each wing
So it could earn a sufficient nest of jing?
Yo Kokomo, is it true no proof remains
that the Dodo was plump and brown as certain grains?
Was it bright as a peacock before it went insane?
Hello Dodo, where did you go?
Did you check out before we checked in
or did you take a Pterodactyl’s wings for a spin?
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Nature's Pavarotti
By Michael Escoubas
Bloomington, Illinois
On stage, resplendent in
black and white
splashed with rose,
we hear your sweetly
whistled songs on branch
at forest’s edge.
More melodious
than the redbird’s note,
you hold twenty
syllables in your
repertoire. Like
a feathered Maestro
your pristine stylings
give the world
a summer serenade.
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| Michael Escoubas, Photographer |
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The Birds of Morris Graves
By David Jibson
Ann Arbor, Michigan
First published in
The Ekphrastic Review, March 2017
Oh, these are not the pretty
painted plovers of Audubon,
but spirit birds of nature
that seek to nest in that
wounded wilderness of the inner eye,
maddened by the sound of machinery
and logged-off mountains,
myths of division and separation,
Taoist owls in times of change,
moonbirds with their haunted bouquets
singing in the next dimension
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Heron
By Daniel Fitzgerald
Pontiac, Illinois
First published in Poetry Super Highway, November 2013
| Blue mist of fog
lingers over water,
remains of early sun’s burning.
A heron, in shallows,
stands stoic, still,
patient for a new day,
and breakfast.
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Parakeet Watercolor
By Mark Hudson
Evanston, Illinois
| A watercolor made so distinct,
shows two parakeets who are extinct.
Red, green, and yellow,
they say goodbye, not hello.
They passed us by before we even blinked.
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| Pam Larson, Photographer |
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Owl
By Cari Desiderio
Mundelein, Illinois
| That day I was visited by an owl
He was sitting there on dainty feet
So quiet that you could hear a pin drop
I walked around the bend and stopped dead in my tracks
He looked at me
As if to whisper into my soul
Look beyond
Look beyond
Trust your instincts
And live them out
Rise above
Rise above
Look into the eyes of God...
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The Crows Desire Great Disaster
By Megan Willome
Austin, Texas
| The crows desire great disaster
Through night, through morn, they travel faster
They slit the sky, they squash the moon
They eat it with a silver spoon
The crows desire great disaster
These microraptors are the master
The opposite of alabaster
They inflict damage with a smirk
In doomsday’s church they are the clerk
The crows desire great disaster
Actor, grafter, charlatan, grasper
They chatter, banter, quickly scatter
Someday soon they’ll pop the sun
They’ll end the world, their work here done
The crows desire great disaster
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| Andrena Zawinski, Photographer |
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Raven
By Taunja Thomson
Cold Spring, Kentucky
| stains the white
landscape, leaving
no track,
cleaving winter
in two.
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Carnation
By Nate Maxson
Albuquerque, New Mexico
| I want to live free like a crow perched on a rock
Watching you climb your mountain
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Blackbirds fly,
circling specks
of ash
against sun-washed blue.
The crows
tell fortunes
unread by man.
Predictive omens
with beak
and claw.
Cawing secrets
one to another—
whispers of change
that no man can know.
Old as the hills
where gnarled trees
hold withered nests,
they circle,
ceaseless
as time.
| Blackbirds Fly
By Rie Sheridan Rose
Austin, Texas
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New Year's Morning, 2006
By Robert Klein Engler
Chicago, Illinois
| the crows rise up
first a pair then another
and another
they fly southward
between tall buildings
entangled in mist
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| Dave Marks, Photographer |
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the truth of darker beauty
by linda m. crate
| a regal crow
greeted me at the entrance
to the wood,
and he didn't utter anything;
simply watched over me
like a feathery
godfather
without a song to wake me from
my reveries—
i saw him watch me the entire time,
but he only observed as i danced
among the trees and sang with the creek
whose streaming lineage of psalm was
too pretty to ignore;
all the gorgeous song
birds fought him for
my attention but i only had eyes for him
i have always found beauty in the grotesque
there's always something truer in the darker forms
of beauty than those without flaw.
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Workshop
By Diana Smith
A yellow finch perches outside the window,
cocks its head at the poets inside
who study pieces of paper.
My pen lowers to the page.
I imagine how it would be to attach to the wing of a bluebird,
wonder what that freedom feels like.
The finch goes back and forth, branch to branch.
"In Flight" is read aloud. I try to get inside
the head of a poet as I sit
beneath framed eggs of North American birds,
various prints from International Migratory bird day.
All the birds in the poems are blue.
One poem is named "The Blue," another "Blue."
My favorite line reads "as blue as his ocular jewelry."
Look at me - I'm yellow.
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| Barbara Thurlow, Photographer |
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The Language of Blue
By Michael H. Brownstein
St. Louis, Missouri
| The squint of sky between twig and nettle
wallpapered azure, sapphire, soft blue:
Mark your soul, Mr. Bower Bird. Create
turrets of royal blue and cyan, Collect
pen tops, blue orchids, for-get-me-nots,
elderberries, purple figs, discarded food
wrappers. Protect your bride behind
your royal fortress. Let the sky whisper
into her song and flight; let the colors of blue
help her chicks thrive and prosper.
Let the brightness of day come alive in their eyes.
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| Lynne Shayko, Photographer |
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| Tuscon Birding
By Lynne Shayko
Parma, Ohio
We abandon our Indian fry bread tacos
To search for burrowing owls.
We cross the uneven grid of Tuscon’s streets
In our flashy black rental car,
Land on a tired road holding dusty unmarked vans,
Their drivers not moving or speaking.
We slowly circle the neighborhood, looking for owls.
The last rays of sun bleed into the desert heat
As we realize we are almost out of time.
We pull into the Safe-Lite parking lot.
And are startled by a tiny spotted owl
Standing on one leg in front of the sewer opening.
Its head swivels to meet us as we draw closer.
We meet two yellow eyes behind coarse feathers.
I try to memorize patterns of spots
And a dainty leg that blocks the sewer entrance.
I eat the owl with my camera and notebook
Until night falls and consumes us all,
Owl, sewer, parking lot, desert,
Ohio lovers searching for diamonds in the sand.
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Spotting an Owl on a Park Bench
By David Nekimken
Chicago, Illinois
Feathered messenger
Bringing glad tidings
Wisdom for the ages
Wings spanning the full breadth of the Universe.
A pose of patience
Unruffled presence
Majestic beauty
Purposeful stillness expanding into our busy lives.
No hoot and holler
All-seeing turn of head
Harbinger of future fortunes
Silent guardian of the Universe speaking to spiritual seekers.
Sign for the times
Interlocking destinies
Prayer in Mother Earth’s tongue
Universal synchronicity of crossing paths, this owl and my new life direction.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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I Turn to Birds (an excerpt)
By Beth Marshall Jack
California
I turn to birds for answers,
they articulate how stasis
even in darkness cannot last,
nor wrestle against gravity.
This morning a spotted towhee
stood on my fence, buzzy sounds,
calling with feathered emphasis
bold black and reddish browns rufous,
like a herald, or minstrel,
blithe lyrics suggest
dreams caught in our throats
like musical notes can be set free.
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| Cheryl Steiger, Artist |
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Dawn Chorus
By Lynn White
North Wales
First published by Ealain,
Extinctions Issue 7, April, 2015
| It starts with one.
One skylark singing.
One Carson warning.
Then the robins and blackbirds join in.
The early birds, like Carson.
Then the wrens and warblers
as the daylight warms them.
Listen.
Can you hear them?
The warning calls are warming up as well,
strengthening their numbers
as the bird song
dies away.
Listen.
Listen.
Can you hear them?
Listen.
Don’t sleep.
Don’t wait
to hear
the silence.
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| Andrena Zawinski, Photographer |
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What Wonder
By Evan Guilford-Blake
Atlanta, Georgia
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What wonder! - In the arcs described by wings
Aloft and floating on the fair spring air.
In graceful glides, parabolas of dare
Defying, in ascent, all earthy things.
Blue light this, that arises o'er their sails,
To waves whose crests on gentle billows soar
Across this sea unshadow’d by a shore,
Undaunted by the shifts of tides or gales.
Gravity, your pull has no attraction
For such as these that blithely dream; no care
For this, your claim to men. We stand and stare
Caught in circling dreams and lissome actions...
What wonder!: Freedom's birth observ’d in flight
And named in timeless crafts of wind and light.
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| Pam Larson, Photographer |
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Ancient Wings
By Andrena Zawinski
San Francisco, California
First appeared at Rockhurst Review
in different form and is in the book
by the author, Something About,
from Blue Light Press
| The little black grackles keep coming back for more.
They pick stale caramel corn from the sack, swallow
them whole, toe-dancing snowdrifts, all bobs in the delight
of the find. Even city doves wait their turn in the blizzard
of birds, in the yes yes yes of it.
One flies a warning, yellow-eyed at my face, as if
I would rush her feathers for a spicy hat, her belly
for a bit of meat to glaze, breast a bone from which
to pull a wish. From where I stand behind the window glass,
it is only this upon which I fix my eyes and my desire--
the wind along lacy wing bars, early light that flirts
a wash across the crown, sheen on bellies and bobs.
If these blackbirds survive the cold another morning,
then so will I. We have these things that hold us here,
this watch, sweet feast, the voiceless scavenging--
the yes oh yes of it.
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| Jenene Ravesloot, Photographer |
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Fledglings
By Marsha K. Ault
Nacogdotches, Texas
First published in
Prey Tell: An Anthology
of Poems about Birds of Prey
| Blanketed with snow
a mother eagle refuses
to leave the nest,
her head camouflaged
in powdery white.
A Mum’s love
on full display
freezing temps, flurries
she remains stoic,
and steadfast.
Her mate hunkers
down close by
to wait out
the driving storm
then he appears.
They make a seamless
switch in such a way
that their two eggs
aren’t exposed for
even a moment.
A few weeks pass
two tiny eaglets
hatch in the warmth
of fluffed feathers and
love.
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Stork Roost
By Kenneth Pobo
Media, Pennsylvania
First published in Hitherto,
a journal from Thailand
Chimneys sometimes hold
their nests, eggs warmed
from the house’s heat. I think
I’d like to see a nest on our chimney,
no fear that one would drop a baby
into our lives. Storks perched above us,
not exactly keeping guard,
a head slightly closer to clouds
than ours, alert to early
bits of sunlight
sliding off gray shingles.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Roadrunner
By Sally Clark
Fredericksburg, Texas
| Rock-hunter, shade-stalker,
Shadow-racing, scissor-walker.
Race and chase, lurk and leap,
All that slithers, crawls, or creeps
Through cactus-rounded dry-bed creeks
Are targeted by pincer beaks.
Sand-streaking, dust and sun,
This cuckoo bird would rather run.
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haiku
By Mike Schoenburg
Skokie, Illinois
sunny at dawn
mallard sips
the pond shawdows
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| Jenene Ravesloot, Photographer |
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Birds in Autumn
By Judith Kaufman
Highland Park, Illinois
| Three rows of birds perched at intervals
atop power lines, like counters on an abacus
calculating, perhaps, the time remaining
till they leave for warmer power lines.
Could one be a malcontent?
Unmoved to make the long migration,
to uproot from one home to another,
genetically rebellious, culturally ambivalent?
Not likely. Birds stay with their families.
Children grow and fly away,
searching for homes, warm or not,
so long as they are of a new climate.
On a visit to a Kenyan animal orphanage,
I once saw an anorexic baby elephant
mourning her murdered mother,
refusing to eat.
How odd: human children do such things
to assert independence from their parents.
Homo sapiens survive by making changes;
other creatures thrive in remaining the same.
If only our evolved brains
could decipher the secrets
of the birds in autumn,
all generations might be content.
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| Sharon Suzuki-Martinez, Photographer |
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The Last Thing I'll Lose
After a line by
Dorianne Laux
By Beatriz Fernandez
Miami, Florida
First published in The Australia Times Poetry Magazine
| A red-breasted bird
whose name I do not know
has sung a nameless song
outside my window
all day now—
gorged himself on countless
berries from a nameless bush
with droopy yellow blossoms.
He’s a brassy-faced bird
who hops along
my nameless neighbors’ fence,
defies my tabbies’ sudden lunges
with sassy grace
and rides wind-ruffled
palm tree fronds
like a fearless surfer
catching waves
on some nameless beach.
Tonight no red-breast will call
from those nameless branches,
instead frog songs will bounce
from one lake side to the other
in wordless chatter
and later still, a night bird
will hoot and haunt
my nameless sleepless hours—
Who, he’ll ask, who?
No need to answer the quiz,
if he’s forgotten my name,
and I’ve never known his.
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| Dave Marks, Photographer |
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Birds on a Wire
By Sylvia Riojas Vaughn
Plano, Texas
| Someone told me they're safe
from electrocution up there.
Lined up, feathers fluffed
against north winds.
One always sits apart,
a sentry?
Maybe they'll swoop down
to a grassy spot to feed.
The chatter!
I watch, wonder
how it would feel to sway
so high in the air.
I remember tight rope walkers,
sleek bodies balanced
on chairs, unicycles.
I remember the top floor
of a skyscraper in Chicago —
palms sweating
as I imagined crashing
through the glass,
no wings, no net.
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| A bird late winter sang
In sweet and simple tune;
The sounds I thought betrayed a man
If he were passing through.
From branch to bush the bird
Flew down to hide in his retreat,
But still I looked about
For him I could not see.
Beyond the hills the drift of light
Will rest in solitude,
Where distant friends with lag
Return not till the flocks will bring
The Raven-Moon, await
To meet these lands again.
Yet sit I in this mingled world
To watch as they go by,
While a bird still singing
Out, never man I hear reply.
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| Dave Marks, Photographer |
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Swan Shawdow
By Clara Berman
Highland Park, Illinois
June 25, 1991
What is the sweet sound of death,
Is it silent as the swan?
When gliding through the water
ripples are spread,
but the swan is silent.
What is the sweet sound of death,
Will I inherit violins?
Or will I swim silent as the swan–
Only a pattern of ripples
On a lake of dreams.
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| Andy Rauschenbach, Photographer |
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| Pilgrimage
By Susan T. Moss
Evanston, Illinois
Follow the ducks’
throaty quack
as they wing and dip
across the bay
then swoop low
to splash on still water.
I am early-morning
witness to flight untethered
by notions of destiny
or urge to write a love letter
to life, not even a postcard
transcribing first light.
They make no compact
with loss or regret,
no need for apology.
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Osprey
By Roy Blokker
Lakeside, Montana
Queen of fishermen, standing guard,
King off on the hunt, high as the mountains
Then skimming Flathead Lake
After the snow's retreat,
That glacial ghost
Where monsters dwell above and under
But osprey only dance in their wake.
So large they are, with piercing eyes,
To rule the water and the skies
And feed their young in tree trunk nests
On platforms built by men
O'er-looking the lakeside condominiums
Where tourists rest while the business of living
Goes on.
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| Roy Blokker, Photographer |
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| Cheryl Steiger, Artist |
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Conure
By Don Campbell
Alhambra, California
| Am I just another bird in this life
A creature whose breathing can be detected by looking at the belly
A nervous headturner wary of attack from earthly forces
Do I use my hand like a claw to hold up a tasty morsel for my beak to stave off guaranteed death
Do I try to fly with my words because my arms are insufficient for true flight
I know I poop like all other beings and that reassures me when my body is shelled
I will still serve what is left behind
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Red Winged Sentry
By Ed Werstein
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
First published in 2011
Wisconsin Poets Calendar
| Cycling through central Wisconsin,
watching mid-May farming;
despite recent rains, fields are being tilled
and planted with corn and soybeans
as streams and ditches drain excess
water from the tiled fields.
Gaining speed on a gentle downslope
I startle a blackbird, standing sentry,
guarding an unseen ground nest.
Like a fighter-jet scrambling to a radar alert,
he is off his fencepost and flying
five feet above and slightly behind me,
red-orange decal in bright yellow piping
glistening in the sunlight.
Chattering away, he escorts me to the end of the fencerow,
the boundary of his responsibility.
I tried my best to explain things to him.
Told him it was an inadvertent encroachment,
not a pre-emptive strike.
That I had no intentions of
leaving behind permanent bases,
stealing his resources
or changing his traditional way of life.
He was having none of my apology.
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| Joe Glaser, Photographer |
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Vultures in Autum
By Kathy Lohrum Cotton
Anna, Illinois
First published in Poaintry, 2016
| They’re at work now—
bald faces cleaning the country road
of a messy red death.
But soon the sated raptors will rest,
then lift from gold-leafed boughs
into autumn’s air high above
a stretch of hay bales, silos, fading fields.
And because the sight of soaring
untethers my feral heart,
my soul
leaps with them,
rising above the day’s carrion
to glide the thermals
for miles, for hours,
our featherless faces sun-streaked,
our lame feet
skimming
the white-cloud floor.
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High Tea
By Kathleen A. Lawrence
Cortland, New York
| Gristle and marrow bake like shepherd’s pie
in the desert sun. Gray crunchy macaroons
made of muscle, a dusty table-scape of bone
and sinew. Grim scraggly clique of screeching
vultures chew on cartilage creme horns.
Gossiping winged neighbors gather beak
to beak over afternoon tea for carnivores.
Gnawing on fleshy cheese finger sandwiches.
Grinning grotesquely through feathered faces.
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| Barbara Thurlow, Photographer |
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| Cooper's Hawk
By Kate Hutchinson
Palatine, Illinois
It darted with sureness
into the evergreen. Glad
I wasn’t near enough to hear
the death screech when talons
punctured nape, I shuddered
to see the limp blackbird
soon draped on a wide branch
of my neighbor’s oak tree.
The victor wasted no time
tearing in. Feathers flew
as the sharp beak ripped,
bit by bit, at the flesh of its
cousin, its steely head
like the knobbed handle
of a cane, its striped tail,
ruler-straight, pointing down.
Precise, focused, functional:
eyes, claws, talons, tail.
Gnawing hunger. An absence
of shame.
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Songbird
By Spencer Sabath
Middle School Student
Highland Park, Illinois
| Songbird, Oh Songbird
How I Admire Your Voice
The songs you sing express the beauty
Of freedom, wit, and choice
Of blue and gold, I hear the rings
The echoes in the wood
I’d fly and play and sing the way
Through journeys, if I could
A single little whisper
May set your voice apart
Of all other living things
That bellow from the heart
The past and present timing
Of the nature, strong and bold
You, songbird, are the music maker
In the hot, wet, dry and cold
Your family’s a’singing
In the forest’s living peace
But you I separate from them
For you’re the holding piece
The greens and browns and purples
In your morning’s subtle song
Ring to me with profound volume
Like the clanging of a gong
Yet in the evening you shout loudly
Calling to rejoice
Songbird, Oh Songbird
How I Admire Your Voice
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| Barbara Thurlow, Photographer |
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Running on Empty
By Jan Chronister
Maple, Wisconsin
I’ve lived the past year of my life
without any film in the camera.
Typing without any ribbon
Sewing without any thread.
Fighting a war with an empty gun.
I see a spotted hawk fly low
dripping trout in its grip.
Blue-silver tresses of river
finally freed from ice.
With mental talons
I hold tight the words
I need to reload.
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| Amy Perlmutter, Photographer |
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A Matter of Vision
By Kathleen Gregg
Wilmore, Kentucky
| I walk into the garage and detect
a squeak, a soft whirr - a hummingbird,
lured inside by the red silk kite draped on one wall.
Cornered in unfamiliar territory,
the bird lacks a blueprint for escape.
Double doors are open to a breeze swirling
with the scent of flowers. The sky awaits.
Yet, this iridescent shimmer flies
a hopeless loop from a nailed-up hula hoop
to the culpable kite and back again.
The farther inside I inch, the more frenzied
its flight. I murmur soothing words,
slowly shift my way to the window and open it.
The breeze is instantly sucked through the garage
and out: a direct line, a clear exit.
I tiptoe out of the garage, watch with relief as the bird
drops down into that blossom of air
and drinks its freedom.
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| Frank Hubeny, Photographer |
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Pigeons
By Donna Pucciani
Wheaton, Illinois
| Have you ever wondered
why pigeons choose to sit on the heads
of heroes immortalized in granite,
warriors on rearing horses?
Those who have won battles
are now weathered in stone,
crowned by an iridescent bird
who is tired of pecking crumbs
of old toast scattered by some
elderly soul in a tattered coat
absorbing sun on a bench, who
has been saving crusts
in a plastic bag all week.
Girded in marble,
the guardians of the public square
await their final halo,
the white substance
of birdly excrement often
peppered with the seeds
of blackberries foraged from
the churchyard yonder.
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At the Shore in Quintana Roo
By Edward Morin
Ann Arbor, Michigan
A frigate bird and I watch curiously
the couple dangling from a parasail,
expanding cumulus above the sea,
a faint half-moon, and wind that will not fail.
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| Frigate bird from Audobon Field Guide, photographer unknown |
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| William Carey, Poet/Photographer, Glencoe, Illinois |
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Cooper's Hawk Freed From Concrete
By Emma Alexandra
Highland Park, Illinois
I imagine you in your illustrious kingdom,
Riding wind waves, sharp eye locating starlings,
Mourning doves, potential brunch munches.
Nature’s delights at your reach,
I feel the beat of your wings over my shoulder,
As you lead aspiring winged kindred to freedom.
You throw off concrete shackles binding your potential,
You liberate fellow travelers.
Yes, even this wayward poet,
Whose gaze reaches skyward, beyond the concrete overpass.
Searching for the message that your winged wisdom brings.
Time and again, and again.
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| Emma Alexandra, Photographer |
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The Parrot and the Samovar
for Gray
By Tricia Marcella Cimera
St. Charles, Illinois
Last night I went for a walk on the moonlit beach
and came upon three seagulls hunched around
a samovar, looking like the witches in Macbeth.
To my joy, my late grey parrot was also in their
company. The gulls cast a dark look, flying off,
but my parrot bade me drink a cup of healing tea
with him. He told me my father was well. We laughed
about old times, whistled old tunes we’d always loved.
The tea from the silver samovar was warm, sepia
as a memory. I asked my parrot then what the waves
were eternally trying to tell us and what his new world
was like. He became quiet, said no more. He never
would talk when I wanted. Instead he laid his beak
against my cheek before he flew away, winging out
across the great wide tea-soaked sea. . .
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| James Paradiso, Photographer |
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| Amy Perlmutter, Photographer |
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Dining Al Fresco
By John J. Gordon
La Grange, Illinois
| They arrive at my restaurant in diverse dress:
formal blacks, whites and grays,
brilliant solids -- reds, blues, yellows…
flamboyant fashion-bending palettes
of contrasting, often clashing splashes.
Competition for limited dining space
intensifies squabbling and persistent lack
of good manners. Meal durations vary.
Some snatch a tasty morsel then retreat.
Those able to fend-off would-be intruders
enjoy a protracted gluttonous session.
Indiscriminate spilling and scattering
create a bountiful aftermarket for guests
willing to forage the food fallout.
Dawn to dusk dining presents the challenge
of stocking sufficient supplies.
Each time I refill those feeders,
I nurture my guests,
enable my guilty pleasure:
avian observation -- up-close.
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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| Let's Fill the Feeders Again with Seed (an excerpt)
By Kenny Sommer
Highland Park, Illinois
Let's fill the feeders again with seed.
Entertainment sitting outside
An Aquarium when in!
Blue bird, come sit on my shoulder?
Now lots of Chickadees
Geese come around every March
Poop reminder of better weather and longer days.
Is that Cardinal from St. Louis?
Raccoons, Squirrels stay away.
Black Birds with Hitchcoock and Paul McCartney
Ducks come by quacking in the rain.
Never see any Golden Finch?
The show must go on, TV or bed time
Fill up the feeders again in the morning!
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Emergence
By Linda Lee Ruzicka
Jeannette, Pennsylvania
| Turning, the emerging feathers sting my back
red as blood, points burn as needles,
as I morph into that which shall be
instead of that which now is
Arms stretch, as wings take form
elegant in both size and shape,
crimson feathers flow from my head
a cascade of unearthly beauty
From my mouth, a song trills forth
for its mating season among my kind,
as I take flight, breezes ruffle slightly
the form I have once again become
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Old Summers
By Edilson Afonso Ferreira
Formiga, Brazil
Published in Indiana Voice Journal (August 2016)
| By the very first days of summers of my youth,
I always heard, every year, the song of a bird.
Never had I seen it, solely hearing its sound.
It was a pheasant cuckoo hammering two whistles,
that all of us, by no error, so listened:
- summer comes! summer comes! -
Like a live version of the clock’s cuckoo, it warned,
to the most unwary ones,
that had begun the most desired and expected season.
Its chant is lost and our days will never be the same
without that hammering dear beat.
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Black Crowned Cranes' Horizon
By Alexander Zitzner
Baraboo, Wisconsin
| Mother Africa’s womb swells with pride
during sunrise over your kingdom
watching your shining pools ripple awake
and again breath within the emerald wetlands,
watching you rise from woven sedge and draped in sable silk
trumpet ancient songs of ten thousand molted feathers
tangled with the wind soaring into Her warm bosom,
imprinting with quills their testament of resilience:
She roughed her heart on your cheeks,
carved her soul into every alabaster bone,
draped her dawn along your wings,
poured her dusk in waves across your back,
and finally bestowed herself, a golden crown,
atop you Queens & Kings about to preen.
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| Danielle Kellar, Photographer |
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Tender Wings
By Lorraine Brown
Chicago, Illinois
| It was just before dusk…momma and papa cardinal…
hard at work, teaching their babes to fly…
0ne hop, a flutter, then a stumble,
until their tender wings lifted them
into the hedge of roses and back to the nest.
Momma took food from papa’s beak
and placed it into the wide open mouths of her babies.
I watched them all afternoon - papa mostly - protecting the family -
as he watched me!
The early evening breeze was picking up,
the scent of the rose bush perfuming the air,
I breathed in deeply, wanting to linger
in the sweet aroma of this perfect summer day.
As the last ray of sunlight began to escape behind the periwinkle sky,
I was concerned…
one baby bird might not make it back into the nest.
I watched papa show by example,
taking a running start with a few hops then up into the air,
landing on the limb of the rosebush.
Finally, from behind, papa gave the little one a nudge,
causing him to pick up a good amount of speed
until his little wings fluttered at a perfect tempo.
I could imagine their conversation…
"Just watch me…here’s how it’s done…just like this…
Faster now! Up…up… there you go! Nice job precious!"
At last…the tender wings made it back to the nest!
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Third Floor View
By Jenene Ravesloot
Chicago, Illinois
| A male cardinal sways on the highest branch
of our budding pear tree. Yellow and purple
crocuses pock the backyard lawn, invade
the herb garden, peek through the uncovered
strawberry beds.
Still wrapped in your bathrobe and barefoot,
you tilt back precariously on a small wrought
iron chair while I lean against the railing, look
into my camera, capture this cardinal in urgent,
full-throated song.
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| Barbara Thurlow, Photographer |
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Cardinal Sin, Recalled and Forgiven
By
Julie Isaacson
Highland Park, Illinois
| Dad's beefy hands cupped a surprise
for which he told me to hold out my six-year-old palms
There, he placed a tiny black and silver camera
which felt like magic to me
"Thank you, thank you, Daddy"
I ran outside, seeing the world in fresh ways
Greener grass, bluer sky, whiter clouds,
deeper rust on the neighbor's car in the street
Then! A flash of red in the budding tree
Amidst the pinking blossoms on delicate branches
Wings tucked back, nervous neck flitting this way and that,
there, perched a majestic red bird, a cardinal, I had once heard Mom say.
It seemed he (or she) would take flight, yet remained
long enough for me to aim my camera, my first animate subject
The bird turned a glorious head to the side, boasting a noble profile
Click! Click! Click! An elated child burst into the house
"Daddy, Daddy, I can't wait to show you this! I saw the most beautiful
the most prettiest, the most wonderful cardinal in the world!
Right there, in the neighbor's tree! Wait til you see it!!
Can we go to the store so they can make the pictures? PLEEASE!!"
"Oh, Honey, Honey, I'm so sorry. Sweetheart...
I thought you knew. The camera isn't a real camera.
It's just a toy. It's just a little toy. It doesn't take real pictures.
It was just to play with. A salesman gave it to me."
Joy turned to gut-wrenching disappointment and tears
Why didn't he tell me? He tells me everything. Or does he?
What else didn't I know? How would I ever remember this
special, incredible, reddest redbird probably in the universe?
Almost 60 years later, I remember.
I remember the shape of the tree, and the aroma of the blossoms
I can see the glossy eyes, the sharp beak, the graceful flight. I hear the click of the sham camera.
I even found it in a drawer when I cleaned out their house.
Memories this vivid don't require a printed image.
The bird's eye in my mind's eye. Better than a relic in an album.
I mostly remember the love with which my father gave me a gift.That memory wasn't buried with him.
Every day, there is a gift, given with love, from my father.
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| Andy Rauschenbach, Photographer |
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Doves
by JoyAnne O'Donnell
Emmitsburg, Maryland
The wings of a dove
I so much love
soft feathers
fly with the different weathers
they are our friends with songs
blessed with gentle ways
sun filled days.
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| From National Geographic |
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Albatross Anxiety
By Barbara A. Meier
Gold Beach, Oregon
| The panic of running to escape the predator,
with the knowledge, I’m not making it homefree
could set wings on my feet.
I would be the extant species,
safe from the baited hook of the long line, with a 12-foot wingspan,
dynamic soaring for distance over time.
On the surface wind, I howl my curses: imprecatory psalms,
My throat an open grave of anger, shoulder-locked, rising vertically
into the wind gradient. Fear in the planetary boundary layer.
If He is everywhere what comfort is that to me now?
The albatross of sin hangs from my chest,
slightly sweet rubbish: skubalon, a choker of transgressions,
laying on a tawdry tunic, flopping and spilling my offal.
Yet the onus is not mine to wear.
It takes only Word to fray. The Water calms, ends the panic.
The Blood spills on sharked waters, feathers float downward,
ashy in the Breath of the wind.
Where is He? Where He promised. Where He may be found.
In Word. Water. Bread. Wine.
His everywhere in me, covering my anxiety.
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| Sharon Suzuki-Martinez, Photographer |
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Lesson Learned from a Bird Brain
By Bonnie J. Manion
Hoopeston, Illinois
published on Illinois State Poetry Society website
| Hearing a random series of clicks
in my kitchen, I investigate to find
an energetic brown bird with red
markings on its wings and tail,
a female cardinal, sideling along
the outside windowsill, every now-
and-then attempting to fly into one
of the closed windows, beak banging.
Not put off, she tenaciously repeats
this effort over and over, everyday,
day after day, all summer long.
Once, her scarlet mate briefly
joined her on the ledge, but flew
away as soon as he saw her fail
to fly even once through the glass.
I speculate that she perhaps sees
(but does not recognize) her own
reflection, perceiving it as an
intruder into her territory. Or,
maybe she sees a space she
wants to explore, unable to
understand the glass barrier.
Famously aggressive, heretofore
whatever she could see was open
to her world. Now, her beak
merely bangs ineptly against
a wall she can see beyond, but
cannot penetrate. This anomaly is
beyond the cardinal’s understanding.
Repeated attempts to fly through
the window are doomed. But,
she cannot resist trying.
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| The Hummingbird
By Idella Pearl Edwards
Marion, Illinois
A hummingbird flew to my window today
As I was sipping tea.
He gracefully darted from pane to pane
As if peering in at me.
He looked so small and yet so strong;
It was quite a sight to behold.
His body shimmered in the morning sun
As he hovered, free and bold.
As if to say, “How are you today?”
He lingered for a while.
His tiny eyes fastened on mine;
His quizzical look made me smile.
His little visit served to remind me,
There is no excuse to be sad.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
I will rejoice and be glad!
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Bird Hand
by Thelma T. Reyna
Los Angeles, California
First published in Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2015 (Golden Foothills Press)
always been this way, she
says, with sparrows and others
gliding through open windows,
alighting on her
hand, their
feathers weightless
she beads slivers of
last night’s bread,
feeds crushed grains
on fingertips
to wisp-beaks,
palm tickled by twig feet,
brushed by wingtips
of these visitors from
clouds and trees
their wings, her hand,
all one: touches of dew,
kisses of breeze,
sunlight dipped with mist
big-boned girl, kneecaps
huge from mops and
pails, eyes heavy
counting cents,
arms lead weights
at dusk
but she soars with birds
in hand,
kindred spirits, lilting
on currents gold,
morning birds
in peace and shade,
cool slants of dawn,
transparent bones,
everything
lightened
of
earth
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| Joan Stapleton Tooley, Photographer |
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Photo Op, Early Evening
By Tom Roby IV
Chicago, Illinois
| A great blue heron, the first I’ve seen all year, stands on a half-submerged log in the Preserve’s four-acre pond. A visitor raises her cell phone to photograph the bird. She yells at it, tries to startle the heron into flight. The bird stays unmoved—a Zen monk gazing at the moon.
The woman hands rocks to her husband and son and tells them to throw the rocks at the heron in order to make him fly off, but the rocks fall short. “Try harder,” she shouts. The boy loses his balance and falls into the water. The father wades in to rescue his son while the mother laughs and captures it all on her cell phone.
a great blue heron
master of immense quiet
a blue moon at dusk
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| Joe Glaser, Photographer |
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Great Blue Heron
By Jennifer Dotson
Highland Park, Illinois
Heron stands still and alone.
One reed thin leg in the water,
the other bent beneath.
Her long neck curves in an ‘S’.
Heron moves with awkward grace,
a nearsighted nervous ballerina
needing lenses.
Sometimes her chest lifts up and
her enormous wings unfold,
expanding up up into the air.
In unexpected moments and
unexpected places,
I see her soaring and I glow.
She is my good luck sign,
my guardian angel.
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| Amy Perlmutter. Photographer |
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2009 Fall
Muses' Gallery Archive
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