Round and Round

Nest after Nest

by Amy LV

Students - earlier this week, walking through our yard, I came across a blown-down, used-up nest. In an eye-blink I was whisked through all of the seasons. A spring of building and growing. A summer of flight. An autumn of goodbye. An approaching winter of quiet. Once again, a small nest reminded me of the cycle of life, and I imagined the same twigs being used more than once by more than one mother bird.

Sitting down to write today's poem, that nest appeared in my mind again. A bit flattened and worn, looking more like a bunch of sticks than a home, this nest whispered to me of all mothers. We build, we create, we love, we say goodbye, we all fly. This happens again and again, in the bird world and in the human world too.

Watch your life carefully this week. Assign yourself the job of noticing tiny beauties. Gather them in your own mind like small twigs and bits of string. And then, later, when you sit to write...they may come back and fly into your heart, flapping the words of poetry.

We do all have favorite topics, and through writing, I am coming to realize that nests are one of my favorite topics. Here are a few nest poems from the past: Recycling, Vacancy, nest. Sometimes you can't know your life topics are until you write a lot of pages. Wading through our own words, we come to know ourselves.

Lately I feel like a twig-gathering little bird, flitting about from place to place to pull together all of the books nominated for the poetry Cybils. I look forward to these chilly evenings (first snow here yesterday), warming my toes with wool, my insides with tea, and my heart with poems.

In case you didn't hear, my book-to-be will be published a bit later than first thought. The new projected publication date of FOREST HAS A SONG, illustrated by Robbin Gourley and published by Clarion, is Spring 2013. Nests in the trees, books on the shelves, two springs away!

Diane is hosting today's Poetry Friday roundup over at Random Noodling. Happy last Poetry Friday of October.

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Recycle with Birds - Poem #342

Nest Woven with Wool

Photo by Amy LV

Students - this poem came from sitting and thinking in a spot of sun.  I was listening to the spring-hopeful birds, looking out of our living room window, and I remembered the time my children and I saved their hair to leave out for the birds.  One word dipped into another, and my thoughts turned to how birds and animals are wise and resourceful in using their surroundings.  

This poem is about something I admire about birds.  What animal do you admire?  Why?  Is this something you might write about?

In the nest above, you can see a lot of sheep wool.  I've posted this photo before...I love it!  Because we have sheep, the birds around our home help themselves to wool on the ground, wool stuck to tree trunks, all colors of wool!  For more nest poems, see poem #240 and poem #275.

This spring, if you examine the nests around your home, you will see which building materials your own neighbor birds use.  If you're feeling project-y, you might even leave out strands of yarn or string or even your own hair!

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