NaPoWriMo #24: Return of Spring

And so sits the dove in the ivy-clad tree,
watching as one season gives way to another.

Watching as the skeletal brown
turns to green, and the treetops

are now alive with birdsong.
Thrushes, finches, tits and robins

conjure up a chorus
of incessant cheer.

In the pond below the dove's perch
sits a chamber orchestra of frogs

all croaking in harmonic baritones
complimenting the treetop choir

heralding in the long days
and the longer sunsets.

And so sits the dove in the ivy-clad tree
singing as spring returns to the forest.

NaPoWriMo #10: Wanderer

Wild gales whip the Southern Ocean,
spraying salt and surf asunder
across the waves,
an invisible conductor
of an Antarctic opera.

A cross-shaped glider,
black wings against the clouds,
a pink bill and ice white feathers.
The mother albatross soars above
the thrashing sea,
barely moving a wingtip,
glides through the theatre of her struggle,
her mission's end in sight.

On a blizzard-besieged hillside
a mess of black down,
his bill as pink as his mother's,
huddles against the chill,
weathering the winter alone
till a familiar shape plummets
out of the freezing tempest.

The chick feasts on what scraps
his wandering mother could scrounge,
meagre offerings from the unyielding waves.

Not long now,
and the ocean will call her away once more.

NaPoWriMo #26: Watchmen of Mull

Continuing the animal theme for the last few days of NaPoWriMo, I give you a poem centering on birds which went extinct in Britain more than a century ago, but were successfully reintroduced on islands such as Mull in the Inner Hebrides.

Watchmen of Mull

They sat on the clifftops
surveying the Firth of Lorn
in the days when the raptors
ruled the skies above the isles.

The sea eagles fished alongside
the humans on their vessels.
Myths of their viciousness
spread across the isles like rot,

and so did the hunters and trappers.
They purged the land for miles
of the kings and queens of the air,
until their sympathetic descendants

facilitated the eagles' restoration
to their old thrones on the cliffs.
Now the eagles soar over Mull,
snatching fish from the bay,

following their fishermen friends,
raising chicks in the old pines
and watching over their kingdom
should the old threats rear their heads.

NaPoWriMo #4: Differences

Today's poem was inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo, which challenged participants to write a poem with a secret. The guidelines were that the poem should contain an idea or a subject that isn't expressed outright. This is my attempt, and I suspect that you will probably guess what it's about pretty quickly.

Differences

Sitting in the shadow of a cactus,
a man with bushy sideburns
draws sketches in a journal.

A mockingbird sits in a bush
and jumps onto the soil
to catch a beetle.

The slim, curved beak,
grey and white feathers
and large brown eyes
seem familiar yet dissimilar.

Compared with the sketches
of its relatives, the man
discovers differences so small
yet they begin a revolution.

NaPoWriMo #3: Microraptor

For day three of NaPoWriMo I'm attempting to push the boat out a bit. Today's poem centres on a tiny dinosaur discovered in China at the turn of the millennium. Anyone who's familiar with dinosaurs or indeed the work of James Gurney will recognise this animal.

Microraptor

A flat splayed skeleton,
a bird's long-lost grandfather,
a tiny skull, like a robin with teeth
and four feathery wings.

Spider fingers hooked with claws,
feet clutched like those of a crow,
a tail lined with wafer-thin plumage
and four feathery wings.

The transition is clear,
yet the differences clearer,
a creature of two lineages
with four feathery wings.

NaPoWriMo #2: Home at the Dawn Chorus

For my second poem in this thirty day odyssey, I present a tale of the dawn chorus as seen from the perspective of an inebriated blackbird. Whoever said poetry needed to be about deep themes?

Home at the Dawn Chorus

A blackbird flutters back to his roost
after a night down the garden
dining on seeds
from an immaculate green feeder
with several perches
wallowing with other birds
in a stone bird bath
after which he clambers into his nest
to sleep off the gorging
and the guzzling
and the slurred singing of Wren of Harlech
only to hear the robin in the next tree
belting out a tenor solo
as the sun rises
and the blackbird curses
the chorus which greets his ears.

Desert Rains

Rain falls on the wastes
of the vast Rann of Kutch.
The dead salt flats become
a living marsh once more.

The empty land of salt and sand
sprouts the year's first green.
Trees and grass spring up
and line the new waterways.

Water floods the desert.
Its heart blossoms into pink
from the flamingoes gathering
on a newly formed lake.

Their ankles flex and bend,
their knees forever invisible.
In the humblest of nests
the eggs begin to hatch.

Stork Village

Openbill Storks,
nesting in trees above a small village.
Their beaks shaped
like scissors, they cluster
over thatched houses below.

Three chicks sit stiff
where their nest landed
after jostling for space.
White feathers tucked up,
but they do not go unnoticed.

A new home awaits
in the sanctuary of the village,
with bowls of snails
to fuel growing wings.

Untouchables

Vultures huddle in their roosts
inside the Mehrangarh Fort,
resting in the barracks
of the maharajah's army.
The fort casts its shadow
over the streets and the dunes beyond.

Vultures gaze at the seething chaos below.
Cast out from the city, ruling
the fort is their reward.
They frown at vegetarian scruples
when there is so much meat on the streets.
One spots something on the city's edge.

King vultures lead the rest
as they take off,
circling figures in the sand.
One is a cow, freshly dead;
the other is a man, a chamar.

They form an aerial wake
as the man removes the biggest
obstacle to their feast.
The man leaves with a
drum skin as the vultures
drop out of the sky and gorge
upon the reeking corpse.

Beaks tear muscle and flesh,
until the rag-and-bone birds of the desert
fly back to their fort
before the sun disappears.

Throne of the Ospreys

An old conifer, gnarled and weathered,
crowned by a nest and two chicks,
striped, hook-beaked, featherless wings
like a half cooked Christmas lunch.

Their throne is webbed by wires,
charging electric crackles
bestowed by nervous birdwatchers
fearful for their new charges.

Around the trunk, indistinguishable
from the bushes it infests,
a wreath of wartime barbed wire
spilled into the undergrowth

as a warning and defence,
the work of a self-appointed
royal guard, dedicated and alert,
the natural enemies of egg thieves.

(Hi guys. So that's the poem for this weekend. Stay tuned to this blog for my verdict on the series finale of Sherlock, coming soon.)