winter sunset,
even birds stop call-call-calling
to look up
Copyright 2022 Brenda Davis Harsham Continue reading
The Deep Quiet
Tag Archives: Bird
To February
our bluejay jeer-jeers
amid newly-forming buds
before he disappears
Copyright 2022 Brenda Davis Harsham Continue reading
By the Brambles
Groundhogs amble past brambles.
Winter torpor adds a weighty waddle
to their dandelion waltz. Continue reading
Cirque de Printemps
Crocuses raise cheery salutes,
opening orange invitations to
invite us to Come One, Come All,
to spring’s circus in the meadow. Continue reading
Lune a Lark
butterfly spreads wings
a lark sings
oh, the joy spring brings
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is my first attempt at a lune, and I was in a rhyming mood. A lune is a haiku variant with syllable count of 5-3-5 instead of the usual 7-5-7. Morgan wrote a magical one. I know I saw one a few weeks ago on Poetry Friday, but then I lost track of who’d written it. If it was you, let me know, and I’d be happy to link up.
Thanks to Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, a prolific poet and champion of poetry, at Today’s Little Ditty for hosting Poetry Friday.
The butterfly is a Tiger-Striped Longwing (Heliconius ismehius). The photo was taken at the Boston Museum of Science’s Butterfly Garden.
Gnome Grown
Sprig Gnome tends his woodland garden. Thistle shears help him prune raspberry canes. He mulches fungus shingles atop his den, waters moss, and collects dinner. Before his basket is full, a shadow darkens the glade. He ducks and dodges but all goes awry. Ida Owl grasps him in her talons, and she lowers her yellow eye.
“I’m done for!” Sprig howls. “Save me!” Will anyone hear him?
“Sprig, save it! I need your help.” Ida Owl grouches. “A splinter in my claw is driving me mad!”
“I see it.” Sprig extracts it with a yank of his thistle shears.
Ida hops side to side, flexing and gyrating. “Oh, what a relief. I must thank you properly. Hop on.”
Is she serious? Can he trust her? Sprig stows his basket. He climbs up her feathers like a ladder.
“That tickles!” Ida giggles. Then she flaps powerful wings. Sprig’s stomach bottoms out as they rise. Winds swirl and flow until Sprig worries that he’s seen his last night. He holds tight. They bank and loop. They hoot and holler. The air smells of crushed apples. He reaches toward stars as if they were snowflakes.
An owl and a gnome make the least-likely of friendships. News travels the meadow like a brush fire. A gnome is riding an owl! Unheard of! Unthinkable! Sequester Squirrel follows, swinging tree limb to ivy vine. Dentbottom Rabbit has to see it with his own rheumy eyes, and his great-granddaughter holds his arm. Dinwald Stag-King brings his large tribe to gape.
When Sprig lands, he feels as if the earth has stopped orbiting the sun. The air is too still. He waves good-bye to Ida, and follows fireflies into his den. His feet find each lump in the maple leaf carpet. His thistledown bed is squashed and untidy. He snips, clips and mixes until his forage stew bubbles and sings. The air fills with the scent of braising brined beetles. But he misses the scent of crushed apples and owl feathers.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: We’ve been enjoying a lovely thaw like spring is visiting February. It makes me wish I could fly. I hope your dreams take you on fun flights of fancy tonight. Warmly, Brenda
We’re Being Followed
Don’t look now, but a tough looking bird is on our trail.
He’s pretending not to look at us, but he keeps turning up wherever we go!
Star Fairy Fibonacci Poem
Quick!
Hide!
Deep down,
All alone.
She fled the falcon,
Taking cover in a canyon
Still she could hear it screaming for her to come out now!
Never would a star fairy fear a peregrine falcon, but she was injured and drained.
She sang to her kin, sparkling in twilight air; soon they entangled the bird in a magic web, destroying his concentration, and saving her.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A Fibonacci Poem is one in which each succeeding line is equal in syllable length to the syllable length of the preceding two lines added together, or one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, etc. Usually they are 5 or 6 lines long, but I wanted to see if I could write one 8 lines long.
The Prophecy and the Runaway Frog
Jasmyn often dreamed of flying. One night, she flew on the back of a bird to a new land. The bird grew tired even though Jasmyn was light as a feather. She landed in a ring of stones, and her bird friend tucked its head under its wing and slept.
Jasmyn could hear a stream, but she could not see it. She followed the musical sound, and found the stream through a bank of yellow irises. Jasmyn wandered for a time, smelling flowers and rolling down the hills, without getting any green stains on her dress, for this was an enchanted place.
She sat, braiding gerber daisies into a crown, when she chanced to see a frog hopping madly down over the top of the hill. It skirted the stone circle and plunged down toward the stream. So intent was the frog on rushing down the hill, he didn’t see Jasmyn until too late, and she scooped him right up.
Friendly Fairy Tales 