3 Nature Poems (because I can't decide)

Great Blue

Crouching, he launches himself skyward,

his great wings lifting him from the shallows

where he fed, slowly rising, this solitary spirit,

steel against the changing light, orange to pink vermillion;

his spindly legs dangle momentarily in his slow ascent,

wings pushing back, caressing the air softly, silently,

and carrying him aloft, westward to the head of the lake –

I have been touched by nature, blessed in his passing.

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Evolution

They have survived for years, millennia,

well past their dinosaur days evolving

into nuthatch, finch, and chickadee,

black-capped, yellow-breasted, barred wings

a-flutter, crowding my feeder, sunflower seeds

purchased locally, locally grown to feed them

now in the winter months’ snow and cold,

these birds flocking to my yard, scores of them,

unbothered by my sitting here watching, rocking here

by the window, warmed by a mug of tea and their song,

feeding them but a reason to sit here,

warmed and watching, surviving, too, evolving.

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The Turtle

It’s a long trek across the road,

so he stops halfway, this turtle does,

where a yellow line would be, if this

weren’t an old backcountry road leading

nowhere important, just home at the end

of the day, or a short jaunt to town;

but it’s dangerous just lying there, as he is,

resting, warm against the pavement, or sunning himself,

perhaps, his hard shell reflecting the afternoon sun,

dangerous to be exposed like that, vulnerable

to a hungry coyote gaunt and lean or the local boys

mean in their late season’s boredom needing relief,

or the summer folk rushing by to catch

the long days left of summer, too soon fading

into autumn’s colors and falling leaves,

folks focused too far to see him lying there, resting and still.

So we stop to hoist him up from behind, carefully held

at arm’s length to avoid his snapping jaws.

But he just pulls into himself, secure in his shell,

here at the lake, as we carry him safely to the water’s edge,

his destination, end of a journey, this ancient creature

still alive by his own good fortune,

and us who share this lake we both call home.