Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Birds

Photo Credit: Deepak Amembal's Magiceye

Midweek Motif ~ Birds

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?"----Rumi

"The science of ornithology has grown so rapidly because the poetry of birds has led so many people to study them. Wholly to divorce the science from the poetry would injure the science"----Alexander Skutch

"Valmiki is the first , the father, of all poets. He is also the first known birdwatcher, and it is his bird watching that has occasioned his invention: from shoka (grief) comes shloka (poetry)"----Leonard Nathan, Diary of a Left-Handed birdwatcher

"O lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire."----Robert Browning

This week will see avian verses.

For thousands of years these feathered beauties have fascinated the creative minds. They have been celebrated in literature, from the ancient Greek poets to the Renaissance poets to the Haiku masters of the seventeenth century Japan to the English Romantics of the nineteenth century.

This great connection and fond relationship with the birds continue.

Today your poems must be connected with birds. It may include fictional birds or even bird watching.

Some bird poems for you:

A Haiku 

by Matsuo Basho

On a withered branch
A crow has alighted
Nightfall in autumn

Ode to Bird watching
by Pablo Neruda

Now
Let's look for birds!
The tall iron branches
in the forest,
The dense
fertility on the ground
The world
is wet.
A dewdrop or raindrop
shines
a diminutive star
among the leaves.
The morning time
mother earth
is cool.
The air
is like a river
which shakes
the silence.
It smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.
Overheard
a crazy song.
It's a bird.
How
out of its throat
smaller than a finger
can there fall the waters
of its song?
Luminous ease!
Invisible
power
torrent
of music
in the leaves.
Sacred conversations!
Clean and fresh washed
is this
day resounding
like a green dulcimer.
(The rest is here)

Mockingbirds
by Mary Oliver

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
(The rest is here)

Note: If you use the photo of this prompt please refer to the source.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.
                         (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be - Bullying)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Night

source

        

                                             Midweek Motif ~ Night

It is strange how night erases day slowly and makes its appearance in dark attire with sprinkles of light all over, lending a mystery to it. This phenomenon had always attracted creative minds and been expressed in words, lines,colors and forms.

Is night all about darkness I really wonder. Is there a glimmer of hope too?

In this context I could not but quote a few lines from Henry David Thoreau's essay "Night and Moonlight": How insupportable would be the days if the night with its dew and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey of the intellect.

To quote Vincent Van Gogh: I often think that night is more alive and more richly colored than day.

And Walt Whitman: To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.

I am also including here a few poems to inspire you for today's theme , Night:

Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight

by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay

It is portentous, and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in our little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market, on the well worn stones

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,

A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl

Make him the quaint great figure that men love,

The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

                                             (The rest is here)

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of light.

                                           (The rest is here)

Meeting At Night

by Robert Browning

l.

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

ll.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

                  (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Power)

Poet History # 13 The Brownings, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert

Written by bkmackenzie

Elizabeth Barrett Browning           Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, England just a suburb of London. The first born of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His father was a clerk at the Bank of England forgoing the fortune of his own father by refusing to work at a sugar plantation which was a farmed by means of slavery. Even on his modest salary he was able to marry, raise a family, and to acquire a library of 6000 volumes. He was an exceedingly well-read and self-educated man. And it though this vast library of books that the young poet would receive his education. Robert was an extremely bright child and an avid reader and took it upon himself to learn Latin, Greek, French and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He attended the University of London in 1828, but left in discontent to pursue his studies by reading at his own pace. His extensive education has led to difficulties for his reader’s; he did not always realize how obscure his references and allusions were.