Thank you, Linda Baie, for hosting Poetry Friday. Don’t forget to stop by TeacherDance and see what’s on Linda’s mind this week.
It’s the anxious time. States are trying to vote safely and struggling with the virus. I am trying to come up with small and more distant ways to acknowledge loved ones this holiday season. It’s just the way it is. We have to accept it.
For this post, I dusted off three bird haiku. This first one was chosen as one of the poems to be paired with an artist for the SYRACUSE POSTER PROJECT in 2013. Artist Carolyn Glavin, a student at Syracuse University at the time, illustrated it, which I thought was perfect. The photo doesn’t do the artist justice, but it’s a charming painting that I cherish.
cardinal, feathered masked bandit on a snowy limb--all can see you
Here are two more haiku featuring birds:
the black white and red woodpecker pecks a metal pipe--he doesn't know.
a sudden robin among the forsythia-- orange in yellow light
Thinking about birds this morning has taken my mind off the election for a short time. Out my window I see bright orange and yellow leaves which brightens an otherwise cloudy damp day.
To close, Happy Halloween 2020! I just read Lee Bennett Hopkin’s 1993 anthology RAGGED SHADOWS to celebrate. Inside these covers, as many teachers probably already know, are wonderfully eerie Halloween poems by legendary poets such as Karla Kuskin and Eileen Fisher and Valerie Worth.
Enjoy the weekend and be sure to stop by TeacherDance for more Poetry Friday inspiration with Linda Baie.
O Janice so many connections to this bright post – birds, always but especially the redbird. And just last week I was in zoomtime with a talented poet-children’s author Rebecca Kai Dotlich, who held up this very LBH treasure & read with great effect, Alice Schertle’s rattling poem, “Skeleton Key.” So scary!
Happy Halloween, with lots of day birds at your feeders, too.
Well, I love all three, Janice, & congrats on that cardinal-illustrated poem. The woodpecker “doesn’t know” gave me a nice smile for today! I don’t have Lee’s Ragged Shadows but others, too, have mentioned it. I thinkI’d better find it! Happy Halloween!
So many colorful images take flight in your post today, Janice. Your woodpecker haiku reminds me of the peckish feathered fellow who’d peck on the rain gutters of our house every morning when we lived in Arizona. Who needs a rooster, when you have a metal loving misguided woodpecker? 🙂
Love your feathery haiku today, Janice. I love watching birds. We had a large pileated woodpecker pecking on our house last week — with a woods full of trees (many dead, just as he likes them), why peck on our house? It’s always a treat to spy a cardinal — love the art that’s paired with your poem.
I have this strange and strong love for forsythia….so that haiku is my favorite! And, thoughts of forsythia…yellow in early spring are a lovely antidote to this crazy anxiety. I’m hoping all goes well and smooth until January.
Janet, yes we all need a bit of pause in our daily lives amidst the craziness. Your cardinal haiku is a good antidote for pre-election times. Congratulations that it was well-received in 2013. it reminds me of a vintage winter postcard with a cardinal that I collected a long time ago.
Birds always bring me joy. And I have a special love for cardinals–I guess because the males are so red. I really enjoyed your bird haiku. I am also seeking any distraction from the election. My daughters are both going camping (on opposite sides of the country)–a good way to really get away. But this is the next best thing.
Thanks!
How cool to have your masked bandit haiku illustrated so beautifully! (I always think raccoon when I hear masked bandit, but a cardinal wears a mask too. As should we all these days!)
Happy Halloween, Janice! Thanks for sharing these feathery haiku – birds are endless sources of inspiration, aren’t they? I chuckled at your woodpecker; we have so many here, and the young ones, especially, attempt those metal poles now and then…. I’ll bet I do a lot of that metaphorically, myself!
I’ve been using birds to take my mind off things lately, too! I enjoyed your haiku!
Yes, let’s turn our attention to nature to calm our anxious hearts.
These are lovely, Janice. Something about that woodpecker, trying so hard, and he’s never gonna succeed…that really got me.
Watching birds is one of the BEST ways to take my mind off of anxious thoughts! Thanks for sharing your haiku, Janice. I especially love your third one, “a sudden robin.”