vanishment (draw a bird day)

I found this erasure poem in a folder when I was cleaning last week. I think I meant to illustrate and post it but it somehow got lost in a pile of other things. Although the article is from 2019, things have only worsened in the intervening years.

It reminded me of a post I did early on in my blog life about the passenger pigeon, which once numbered from 3-5 billion in North America. The last one died in captivity in 1914. What happened? Native Americans coexisted with the bird, which they hunted for food, for 15,000 years.

In the 19th century, pigeon was marketed as cheap nutrition, and massive hunts of these very social and easily located birds took place. At the same time, there was a rapid decrease in their forest habitat. But it still seems unreal that such a large population could dwindle to nothing in so short a time.

But we keep allowing it to happen, not only to birds, but to all of life, both plant and animal, everywhere.

I did a monoprint of dead passenger pigeon specimens, which is all we have now. The one above is my printing glass, which I photographed after I finished printing and before I washed it off. The top image is the print, with a little ink detailing on top.

taking wing now–full
extinction reveals loss–
mornings of no sound

June 2023

June butterflies days
with peripheral visions–
fleeting shadowed light

June butterflies days
with makeshift impermanence–
colors cast in dreams

of peripheral visions–
horizons weave time
into salty sea-sky wind,

fleeting shadowed light
tinged with endings—summer melts
backwards into fall

Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt had us taking a test to determine our spirit animal. Butterfly was my answer yesterday, although if I took the test today it would probably be different. My answer to most questions of this type are “it depends”. But I’m not displeased–butterflies are wonderful creatures.

I wrote a troiku turning butterfly into a verb, as requested by Sarah for her prompt at dVerse. I also used words from this week’s Oracle 2 Random Word Generator.

winged surprise startles
as it alights on my arm–
the world pauses, stilled

The collages are old ones from the 70s that I discovered in my archives.

Evasions (Thursday Doors)

image by Teresa

They say our finite ocean is
but a minor detail–
a boat
resting on the back of Great Fish–
that our true home sets sail
below

~stars~

are where we came from—light scattered
and caught by His Eye–
arranged
into what reflects His Matters–
the opposite of sky–
held, caged

~far~

away from home—I wish to leave
this vessel, to unlock
the door–
there is so much I can’t conceive–
my mind keeps casting thoughts
ashore

~where~

I number my questions, detail
the longings between words–
what if?
and why?  Who Are You?  Can you tell
me how air flies birds–
spindrifts?

image by Erik Johansson

I’ve written a double memeuente for the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge, using an image submitted by Teresa. Serendipitously, I found an image on Erik Johansson’s website that gave me a direction for my poetic narrative. Johanson’s work was introduced to us by Mish at dVerse as inspiration for a surrealistic poem.

I’ve also used some of this week’s words from the Random Word Generator.

I’ve always thought there was a connection between fish and birds.

You can see many doors (and their stories) every week at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.

And take a journey through alternate worlds at Erik Johansson’s website here.

Willow Ptarmigan (Draw a Bird Day)

camouflaged
by season—winter
white, summer
brown—molted
feathers, snowshoe feet, hidden
in thickets, burrows

I first saw a photo of the willow ptarmigan in winter, when it is completely white and fades into the snowy landscape of its subarctic home. Upon further investigation, I was surprised to find that it molts its feathers twice a year, to match the summer browning of its environment. It looks like a completely different bird.

Above is a male in the between-state. The red above the eye becomes prominent on the male during breeding season. Willow ptarmigans are monogamous and pair off while raising their families, but are very social in winter when they form flocks as large as 2000 birds. They are ground dwellers, building their nests in tree thickets and sheltering in snow burrows during the winter months. Their thick plumage and large heavily feathered feet with sharp elongated claws help them navigate and survive the cold, snow, and ice.

Members of the grouse family, willow ptarmigans are native to the subarctic tundra, heather moors, and thicket forests of Canada, the United States, Scandinavia, Mongolia, Russia, Ireland, and the UK. Willows are a favorite component of their diet of bugs, twigs, leaves, seeds, and berries. They are not endangered, but their habitat is threatened by the rising temperatures of the arctic region.

The willow ptarmigan is the state bird of Alaska.

Northern Flicker (Draw a Bird Day)

Opening its wings, flicker flashes its feathers in colorful flight.

The Northern Flicker, a member of the woodpecker family, is found throughout North and Central America, and also in Cuba and the Cayman Islands, in almost any habitat that contains both trees and open ground for foraging. The main part of its diet consists of insects, of which ants are the primary component. It also eats seeds, nuts, fruits and berries. Flickers use formic acid from ants to assist in preening, which aids in getting rid of parasites, a process known as “anting”.

One of the few woodpeckers to migrate, flickers show the most color when in flight–red-shafted in the west and yellow-shafted in the east. Hybrids are common in overlapping ranges. They nest in tree cavities of dead wood. Like all woodpeckers, they use drumming on trees or metal objects to declare and defend territory, and as a means of communication. The flicker is the state bird of Alabama, where it is known as the yellowhammer.

Although not endangered, populations have declined since the 1960s.

I hear flickers frequently, both from my apartment windows and in the park, but I haven’t been able to spot one for a long time.

I’ve written an American Sentence for Aishwarya’s W3 prompt to write one with the theme of beauty.

March 2023 (Mad as a March Hare)

Time sinks into quicksand,
manipulated and migrated
by determined legislation–
spring ahead—reset your clocks!

Manipulated and migrated,
Sun surveys Earth with amusement
and continues to keep its own hours.

The determined legislation
impels no change to Sun’s path,
the space it occupies, or how it is viewed.

Spring ahead—reset your clocks!
(The birds will not forget to tell you
when it’s time to rise and shine.)

The Wombwell Rainbow has been posting a weekly poetic form challenge which I always mean to do. This week Paul is asking for poetry that uses idioms. Although it’s the autumn time change that really irritates me, as I dislike the day ending at 3pm, I noted on my March calendar that we will lose an hour of sleep when we “spring ahead” this month. I used the trimeric form which was from a challenge weeks ago, but as you know, I like repetitive forms.

I also used words from the Random Word List.

I did do my usual monthly grid, but using one of the Year of the Rabbits seemed more appropriate to both the month and the poem. And somehow a bird always fits.

Lourie/Turaco (Draw a Bird Day)

Fertile branches of fruit, leaves, and flowers attract feathered families craving sweetness—their rampant appetites, bursting with greed, work every angle of every treetop.

If we imprison the tree in a net to protect it, will we make the birds disappear? or entrap them too?

Pests from one point of view look like integral parts of the ecological landscape from another.  Can both coexist?

between seed and birth
roots gather inside darkness
holding a new breath

Robbie Cheadle recently wrote a poem talking about her experiences with her local birds. Eleanor, a tame hadeda, had come into her office for a visit. I discovered right away that the hadeda is an ibis, a bird I’ve painted and written about previously. It’s a magical bird, and Eleanor’s behavior reflects that.

The other bird Robbie mentioned was a lourie, one that she freed after it had become entangled in a net on one of her trees, a bird I knew nothing about. Lourie is a local South African name; these birds are known as turacos in other parts of the world. But the behavior Robbie described is typical of the species.

Louries are poor flyers, but are excellent at climbing, due to their mobile toes that can rotate backwards and forwards; they also use their long tails for balance. They spend most of their time in treetops, eating fruit, flowers, leaves, and small insects which is why they are often not welcome guests in human habitats. But they provide an important role in distributing the seeds of trees throughout the landscape.

Louries travel in groups, which can be loud and noisy. They do not migrate but wander around in an irregular pattern, though they often have favorite trees that they return to again and again.

The grey lourie is also known as the Go-Away Bird, dues to its loud “go-away” call.

The brightly colored green and red of some turacos contain the only true red and green pigmentation known in bird feathers. Although other species have feathers that appear red or green, it is due to the reflection of light.

You can read Robbie’s story and poem here, and also see photos of Eleanor.

And I’ve used some of Jane’s Random Words for my haibun.

More Lions (Thursday Doors)

The streets are my friends–
a concrete jungle, gridded
rampantly with doors.

I walk among guardians,
greeting them with a photo.

Lion spirits mix
garlands with mysterious
detailed messages.

Hello, tell me your story.
Silence keeps their secrets safe.

I encountered both of these lion doors while out running errands. The first building is rundown with an unremarkable metal door and buzzer system–yet it’s heartening to see that the lion guardians remain to keep evil spirits away.

I was able to find out a bit more about the second building– it was constructed in 1890, designed by architect John G Prague, with storefronts on Amsterdam Avenue and five stories. Three more stories were added in the early 1980s. The building is a rental with 46 studio, one- and two- bedroom units. There doesn’t seem to be much turnover, so I expect it’s well-maintained. It looks that way from the outside.

John Prague designed many many upper west side buildings and brownstones, but I was unable to find out any other information about him.

And I was left totally in the dark as to the reason for the Stars of David above the doorway. They make sense as an accompaniment to the lion ornaments, as both are symbols of Judaism. But the building is just an apartment building now–was there originally a synagogue inside? A religious school? I could find no information about it at all.

Life is full of mysteries. This is just another one to add to my list.

The poem I wrote for the lion doors answers the W3 prompt from Jaideep Khanduja for a tanka with personification using the words “concrete jungle”. And I’ve also used some words from Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday Random Word List: mix, greet, walk, detail, and rampant.

And look for more doors here at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.

Year of the Rabbit

time to
slow down—focus
on healing, connections–
become the current, flow
deep into e
motion

This year is supposed to be a calm respite after the 2022 Tiger Year. A year when our seeds will bear their karmic fruit.

Red is always an auspicious color for Chinese New Year, and Rabbit is associated with the moon. But it’s also the Year of the Water Rabbit, highlighting emotions, instincts, and flexibility

I drew a number of rabbits with brush and ink on rice paper, and then copied and collaged them with flowers, putting some on moon backgrounds. The other ones will show up from time to time.

The Year of the Rabbit is supposed to be lucky. One website I visited said that “Life will get better soon.” Fingers crossed.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Curlew (Draw a Bird Day)

the small is mirrored
in the large, and what appears,
surprises—the same,

but filtered by air,
particles of refracted
light, pixelated

into fragments, in
to a gridlike layer of
illusion—the eyes

are fooled at first, but
the voice, immediately
recognizable,

permeates, revealing the
inside of the Other Side

I recently finished Ali Smith’s “Companion Piece”, a book in which the curlew has a large role. “It’s flesh, everyone knows, is pure and clean because this bird is known to eat nothing but air and is also known to be a bird that comes as a gift from God to befriend the pilgrims and it exists, the story goes, to weld the heaven to the earth.”

“The stories say it is a bird that likes books and even brings them in its beak to saints if the saints have dropped their holy books in water and they need retrieving or if the saints are short of something to say to people then this bird will be the messenger that brings them books full of things God would like them to say.”

The curlew is strongly associated with the Seven Whistlers, birdlike night creatures whose eerie call is said to bring on death and disaster. But it is also seen in a more positive light as an intimate part of its landscape–moors, bogs, and river valleys, the windswept winter coastline.

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,
Hearing the horizons endure.
–Ted Hughes

Five of the eight species of curlews are endangered, with two–the Eskimo Curlew, and the Slender-Billed Curlew–most likely already extinct. A migratory bird, they are found throughout the world. Their vocalizations are filled with complex harmonics and pitch variations.

Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry,
Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill
–Dylan Thomas

Sometimes my research on the bird I choose to draw yields little information, but the curlew is so well-represented in poetry, music, nature writing, and folklore, that I could not begin to touch on even a small piece of it in one post.

If you want to find out more, here are a few good places to start:

https://www.curlewsoundsproject.org/curlewsinculture

About Curlews