Beijing Magpie

Beijing Magpie

“May the magpie of happiness return to roost in our trees” – Chinese saying

Pica pica please don’t fly away
Our smoggy air is not a Four Pest ploy.
For health, good fortune, wedded bliss please stay.
We need your dapper black and white for joy.

So you are thief, rogue, louder than a jay
deceptive, sneaky, flashy, brash and coy.
Bold happy bird don’t disappear in grey.
Without you I won’t be a lucky boy!

© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

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Prompt – Inspiration
This is another poem inspired by one of the photos in the Shadows and Silhouettes collection from the Boston Globe. This poem was in response to photo is #24

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This April I’m celebrating National Poetry Month by posting some not-as-yet published poems from my files, along with what inspired them. If the prompt inspires you to write a poem of your own, you’re welcome to share it in comments. Just one more day and we’re done with posting this collection. It’s gone by quickly. Thanks for dropping by!

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Crow

Crows always seem like such wise old watchers to me. If they could talk, I wonder what stories they would tell

I took the photo of this old sage in  Loeppky Park, Dawson Creek this summer.

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This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Michelle at her blog Today’s Little Ditty

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Magpie

Poetry took a back seat this busy summer of being a mom and grandma first, writer second. But I did take lots of photos and tried to write a little something every day inspired by a photo.

Northeast B.C., where we spent the last three weeks with family, has many magpies. One morning one of them  was flitting about in a yard we passed on our walk. It is the subject of my poem for August 10th.

 

Did you know…

– Australian magpies swoop and buzz walkers, joggers and cyclists during nesting season.

– Magpies are known (along with other corvids) for their intelligence. The Eurasian magpie even recognizes itself in a mirror.

– In some countries (like China) people believe magpies (Pica pica) bring good luck. They also appear as characters in folklore, stories, and rhymes from around the world

– Some people love magpies but others don’t!

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This poem is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Dori Reads.

 

Warbler’s Confession

Warbler (Image from Pixabay.com)

(After witnessing a strange sight in the French Alps, March 24, 2015)

Today one of those giant fowl
passed with the grandest roar
I watched with admiration
how this mighty bird could soar.

But then it did the oddest thing
a most peculiar sight
changed attitude from up to down
descended like a kite.

I chirped and called and warbled
to warn it of disaster
but that great monstrous creature
only descended faster.

It plowed into a mountain
crashed into the cliffs
split into a million tiny
shards and broken bits.

I admit my jealousy
of giant’s perfect beak
its angle eyes, symmetric wings
its feathers smooth and sleek

it’s eagle speed, its beeline flight
its course above the cloud
its noble bold intelligence
its call, steady and loud.

But that’s all in the past now
I’ll never more complain
that I’m a simple warbler
and not a fancy plane.

© 2016 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

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I wrote this poem on April 1, 2015, the first day of 2015’s National Poetry Month. As you can tell, it was inspired by a tragic air event that had happened about a week before, on March 24, 2015.

I planned already earlier this week  to publish it for Poetry Friday as my persona poem contribution to Michelle’s (and Laura Shovan’s) May challenge at Today’s Little Ditty. Then another eerily similar plane disappearance occurred just this morning, May 19th, Paris time.  Oh my! My poem is by no means meant to make light of these very serious events.

Warbler reminds us, too, that it’s good to be just who we are.

This poem is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by the lovely Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.