Poetry Friday - Crow Fest

   

        Poetry Friday is with Jone Rush MacCulloch HERE at her website. Thanks for hosting, Jone!

        This week: I Voted! Don't forget!

           It is nearly Halloween, so it seems appropriate to feature crows. After all, they group in "a murder of crows", right? However, I want to share something that is not frightening that I see every evening, flocks flying over my house, on their way to downtown Denver for the night. According to WorldBirds.com, "this behavior is thought to play an important social role for crows, helping them exchange information, look for mates, and generally socialize. There may be other reasons for crows to gather as well, including funeral behavior, feeding, and social gatherings." This site explains more if you are interested.

         In the early evening, I watch to see the crows flying over. There aren't many at a time but they usually keep coming for about fifteen minutes. Here's a video of the conclave in our downtown, then my poem and my picture capture of a few from my own backyard.

Happy Halloween!

#PoetryFriday + #SOL17 - 10/31

Number ten of thirty-one, nearly a third of the way through the month of the Two Writing Teachers March Challenge. Find the links here!

And today, Poetry Friday with Michelle H. Barnes at her beautiful blog, Today's Little Ditty! Today she shares an inspiring time at a conference recently, listening and being inspired by Lily Yeh, an artist building parks and memorials in the most poignant and needed of places. You will want to visit to discover more.

My blog is a few days over six years, and I've enjoyed every part, the poems, the stories, the pictures shared. Writing over a period of time is not only a diary of events but becomes a reflection of self, I think. I see patterns and those of you who read my posts possibly do too. I reserve my most personal words for family and for nature. Two things touching the outdoors stand out all through these six years, writing about skies and about crows. As can be seen by my header, crows pop up often like those "Four and Twenty Blackbirds/baked in a pie." 

Poetry Friday - No Fools, Only Flutters

         Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting Poetry Friday today, and just in time for me to celebrate her new book, Everyday Birds. Thanks for hosting, Amy, and for this beautiful book! Come on over to The Poem Farm for the first day of the 20th anniversary of April as Poetry Month.

There is so much going on this April, and you can discover much of it if you also travel to this post by Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

You can take another path to Laura Purdie Salas' blog, Writing The World for Kids, to see the very first line of Irene Latham's poetic idea, the Progressive Poem. I have also posted the entire list of writers on the lower right column of the blog.

I'll be out of town for some of April, so have decided not to write a poem everyday as I have in the past, but may join other invitations, or sneak in some of my own poetry when I can. Happy Poetry Month to everyone writing those magical words called poems!

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           I loved and could identify birds since I was a little girl, mostly because of grandparents' influence. One grandfather in particular and I would sit on his back porch and watch birds fly in for evening meetings as they grabbed last bites and settled in for the night. Their murmurs at that time of day still touch me. My first adult awakening came when I read about the passenger pigeon from John Muir's memoir, My Boyhood and Youth. I was shocked that people didn't realize that these millions of birds could disappear, in an earth's instant, from unchecked killing. Other experiences through the years, many with students, brought me to the realization that I love birds, am fascinated by their habits and their evolution into fabulous unique capabilities. To watch a small phalanx of brown pelicans fly low over the ocean and dive for a meal never fails to make me stop and watch in awe. I have seen the last dodo, stuffed and sad at the end of a hallway at the Harvard Natural Science Museum. I have seen and counted sandhill cranes, among which were six whooping cranes, perhaps the only time I'll ever see them. And I have seen and shouted when I spotted my first blue footed boobies in the Sea of Cortez. I love birds.