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 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 5

Today NaPoWriMo.net offered a lovely poem and idea as a prompt. Isn’t it better to see the tiny good things than to not see them or worse to never see them?

How lucky I am to be able
to fill the bird feeders
while the chickadees and cardinals
whistle waiting in the shrubs.
Today I thought – how lucky
despite doing pretty menial work
I am able to stay home now
“retired” so I can paint
and spend time with my mother
I can fill the pantry and
enjoy some snacks and go out
to enjoy the clouds.
Maybe each day, I’ll
catch some words
lured by hot coffee or wine.
To every life may come some joy
small moments not always shiny
and if I’m lucky enough
I’ll get another chance
to know how each day
can be a blessing.

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 5

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 28

Little helpful hint for you: if you decide to clean off some of your palette, and specifically, decide to wipe down the paint-sticky edges of it… make sure that your finished painting is somewhere far away and your clothes are all washable because I managed to disconnect the lid, drop the bottom with all the newly wet and cleaned out sections of paint which basically threw drops of bright color paint everywhere onto me and the newly done painting. Yeah, I meant to do that. Honestly, it’s a thing and I’ve never managed to get good dots of paint like this before!

Pencil width rolls of
Lily of The Valley leaves
Spiking the lawn edge

the light is fading
the robins take to the shrubs
reciting their day

all the fresh green leaves
fade to silver and blue
and everything sleeps

NaPoWriMo 2023 Day 28

Let the squirrel-times roll… or not

Thanks Morebirds for giving me a way to replace the tube of my old Droll Yankee tube feeder that got eaten by a bear in the spring. Ten bucks, good as new, with just a philips screwdriver and a large nail (this later part I came up with as a way to hold the small nut way inside the feed hold while I screwed in the other side). I took a moment to clean up the metal bottom before reassembling and it really looks like new. I also ordered a small-birds-friendly feeder with collapsing perches to fill in the package and that looks nice too. Holds quite a bit of seed and I already saw some birds checking it out.

I moved the feeder Mom gave me the other day to where the screen tube was but added a top baffle. If that seems to keep the squirrels busy I will probably move the whole thing higher and go back to the screen tube since the larger birds prefer it.

After that arrived but before all the assembly stuff I headed out to get bird seed and managed to blank out on everything else on my list. So I got a few art supplies instead because it was almost not raining. Now it’s raining again. The Kinderhook is raging.

New feeder with collapsible perches, a demonstration movie.

Let the squirrel-times roll… or not

NaPoWriMo Day Ten

The other day, the NaPoWriMo prompt was to re-read a bit of Spoon River Anthology and write something in the voice of someone who has died. That wasn’t the day for me to do it but today, I took that idea and my remembrance of my Junior High (remember when grades 7 and 8 were Junior High rather than Middle School?) Science teacher and went with it. Still in progress but here it is. And what a wonderful day full of sun and flowers and birds today was.

In my front tree and across the road
the birds each in their own tongue
are calling, hoping, seeking
telling how great it is to be a bird
how wonderful this kind lady feeds them
how warm the sun, how good to be back in town
at least that’s what I think they say
It’s true I don’t really know
the meaning of it all is
but my junior high science teacher
Mrs Sheehey thought it was good to learn
about birds and bird songs and taught us.
Sometimes she’d spout bird talk thus:
who cooks for YOU? – holding out the last
who cooks for YOU? Barred owl, she’d say, then
Peter! Peter! Peter! – and wait for
someone to call out – a cardinal!
Not suggesting the topics of conversation
she hoped we’d pay attention and now I do
and this time of year, birds and song-full
I think of her, imagining her nearby
looking up into the tree with me,
her whistling and me, without whistle,
calling Phoebe… Phoebe… Phoebe…
uncertain who is returning my call.

Today I got up relatively early and headed off on an errand to the post office. Received notice that an appearance from fall 2020 was rescheduled to fall 2022. LOL hope they send me a reminder!

Thought I’d swing by and get some toner for printer but saved that for another day.

Lots of action in the front yard all day.

I call ‘chickadee’
a bird calls ‘chickadee-dee-dee’
we enjoy our chat.

NaPoWriMo Day Ten

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Six

Grey and rainy. Well, beyond rainy: hosing down rain and grapple and hail. Went to Hand Hollow and caught a glimpse of the same bit of heron head in the nest. It is hunkered down probably wishing it had a roof! Had to rummage some for a poem idea. I think we’re all about here now. I did manage to slap some Krazy Glue on my computer glasses this morning. And I did mess around with gouache while watching for the heron. It worked ok, but I didn’t have much of a plan going so the contrast and spacing isn’t all there. But hey, that’s what a sketchbook’s for right? trying things out? capturing things? OK here’s a poem.

Things I could have done
Should have done, must do
even those I’d like to do, well,
I stand in the quiet house
and they gather all around me
follow me down the hall
but I’m out the door
and down the steps before
any of them can grab me
not by the wrist or ankle or hem
I’m gone to who knows where
I sure don’t know or why but
today it is just not any of that.
And likely to be nothing at all.

NaPoWriMo – Day Twenty-Six

NaPoWriMo Day 2

Today was more about picking up a grocery order and unpacking some shipped fruits and vegetables but this was yesterday:

Picnic in Time of Isolation

Having carefully packed my
ham and cheese sandwich, the
packet of crackers, the
thermos of hot tea,
I sit and picnic in the car.
In the late day slant
the tips of my front yard birch
are pink and sparkling while
lower branches move with birds
grabbing last seeds from the
feeder there. I have to duck
as I pass but now it’s busy
with sparrows and red-wings and
finches, and there’s a dove.
I sit in the warmer car,
thermos cup on the dash,
savoring the mustard and how
someone, oh me, toasted the bread
and carefully cut the
resulting sandwich in two.
The ground is thick with empty
seeds but the grass is greening
and the daffodils glow in the light.
Soon tiny solar lights will twinkle
on above the front door,
welcoming me back and I’ll pass
beneath the several vee’s of
birch trunk, ducking on my way home,
hands incensed with the sacredness
of a single mandarin orange.

NaPoWriMo Day 2