May First, 2024

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

May First, 2024

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 30 FIN

Had an appointment with Mom with morning and of course lunch afterwards. Had a quick job to do at her house and then I took the scenic route home. Once home, I got down to figuring out – are all the parts to this old bird feeder here or is it time for this to go away. And of course all the parts were there and they were coaxed back together with a little tinkering and some cable ties. While I sat there pretending I knew what I was doing, so many birds were in the trees around me and indeed – Oriole! Hummingbird! Rose-breasted Grosbeaks! Wren! Song Sparrow! Red Winged Blackbirds! Tree swallows! Woodpeckers!

For my last official act of April
I rounded up all the parts of
a bear-busted bird feeder
and found all the parts were there
A little undoing and redoing with
some cable ties and what dad
would call a lick and a promise
it was back together again.
Then found some new cord
to toss over the limb of
the busy birch tree
was it laughing at me
and while an oriole whistled
from high above, some orange angel
come to survey this busy yard
I rehung it. Needs different hardware
so the knots are iffy
I sat and watched the birds
come two by two and one
keeping a skeptical eye on me
and whatever it was
I thought I was doing.

---

birds all watching while
birdfeeder’s repaired again
more patient than bears

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 30 FIN

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 28

I was excited to see the NaPoWriMo suggestion to write a Sijo. Ooooh a new short form to explore. Then I started reading about the structure and how it works and – friends, it’s day twenty-eight. I got nothing like that in me.

I did hear what I believe to be a hummingbird go by today. I was turned away from the garden so I didn’t see it, but if it wasn’t a hummer, I don’t want to meet a bee that loud! I had put my feeders out a few days ago, even though it seemed cool. Today was about seventy though so I can believe they’ve started to return.

how can syllables
explain the unseen wing buzz
of a hummingbird

waited hopefully
for the first hummingbird
but only rain

Found this at the edge of the garden as I was setting out wintered over plants to catch some rain.

Love this time of year when you can search the ground for things that are coming up and look forward to them getting much larger. I’d planted some bareroot plants last year (sparking a whole extreme poison ivy moment) and thought a few of them didn’t survive at all. But now, there are the three monkshood plants, right where I’d plopped them (and will leave them due to poison ivy roots!). Also the astilbes, hosta and cat mint are coming up along with some day lilies from Mom’s garden and the two primrose that hang on with the help of a chicken wire deer deterrent and a columbine plant that did the same!

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 28

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 24

Lunch with Mom today because Wednesday is Greek Food Day at our Alexis Diner! Then home and the light was nice and it wasn’t too chilly so I sat out and watched the front yard change.

Yellow light slanting
in afternoon across lawn
blue shadows sap green

red wine seems chilly
afternoon shadows deepen
with glints of sunset

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 24

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 23

I have no idea what prompts were offered today. I messed around with bird feeders (one crook totally fallen apart, one squirrel baffle undone, hummingbird feeders hung albeit early). I transplanted the cheery little tulip ahead of a visit from the propane company. And indeed, he showed up today. Time will tell if the tulip survives.

it’s ok to be silent
to wait for something
to happen by
here is some sunlight
over there one red tulip
in the tree, many birds
it’s ok to be here waiting
being quiet amidst the birds
many clad in brown and gray
but there goes a cardinal
now the coffee is gone
and soon I go too.

And now, obligatory black cats.

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 23

NaPoWriMo 2024 day 22

As I went to fill a bird feeder today, the cardinals really giving me the what-for, I wondered how much propane I had left. There I found a surprise and gauges that said about 35 whatever, so plenty to get me to the next fill.

around the corner

behind the house shadow a

Single red tulip

out in the front yard

the cardinal calls to me —

Fill the feeders now!

NaPoWriMo 2024 day 22

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 21

Ventured out to see Mom, get sunflower seed for the birdies, get katfüd for the kitties and have some dinner. Amazing the changes in the world in a week plus. Although it was quite nippy today, sp many flowers and trees in bloom!

closed my eyes briefly
now the hills are fringed in white
lacy wild cherries

magnolia and
weeping almond and cherry
line my mother’s street

in my own garden
the first of the daffodils
are fading

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 21

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 19

I sat outside even though it wasn’t particularly sunny this afternoon. The daffodil season is short in the scheme of things.

sitting with daffodils
no words from either of us
I painted, they glowed.

eventually
drops of rain fell on my work
all yellow washes

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 19

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 17

Sunny and rain. Another April day at the edge of New England. Lately I keep thinking – I enjoy writing haiku, writing in such a small format, trying to snag a moment or an image, but I can’t pretend to be Japanese. Perhaps this is where the idea of American Sentences comes from. I cannot write to satisfy the ancient cultural ideas of a culture that’s not my own. So, bear with me in my haiku/senryu practice.

no cherry blossoms
i am not japanese
daffodil haiku

another day
another two pink lines
more isolation

easy to stay home
a gift of the pandemic
welcome lesson

coffee and take out
chili, spicy and so hot
fragrant car ride home

In other news, I let the two young cats rummage through a laundry bag of laundered toys and balls. This amused them for quite a while and then I heard them move through the house with new jingly noises. I was surprised to find that one of their choices was this big plushy racoon. Only the head is stuffed. This was not just pulled out of the bag, but carried all the way upstairs to the bedroom!

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 17

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 16

Feeling better! Today was Day One of no temperature (with no meds) so this is good!

Beautiful day! This is good too! Went out and sat awhile with the sun and daffodils!

Tomorrow is Haiku Day within Poetry Month, so start your engines! Today’s prompt at NaPoWriMo HQ was to “write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does.” This is as close as I could get.

finding the edges
the dark wine smoothly slips round
red meets transparent

no color edges
just whatever’s reflected
lips seal around it

cool sides now warming
edges hard by design
keeping it all in

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 16