9 March 2022 (mother reports)
Kristen Lindquist
my mother reports
her blackbird is back . . .
soft spots in lake ice
Book of Days
BOOK OF DAYS: A POET AND NATURALIST TRIES TO FIND POETRY IN EVERY DAY
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Filtering by Tag: blackbirds
April 8: April rain
Kristen Lindquist
Rain pockmarks the lake
where I once swam as a child.
Tree full of blackbirds.
Posted with BlogsyOctober 14: Corn maze at Beth's Farmstand
Kristen Lindquist
January 10: Crows in the pines
Kristen Lindquist
Sitting in a meeting late afternoon, I sensed a shadow passing by an office window near me that looks out onto a small wooded park. Subtly turning my head, I realized that the shadow was a crow flying into a tall pine. Followed by another crow, and another. A group of crows--a family? a small winter flock?--was heading for the shelter of the boughs to roost for the night.
I was reminded of a section of Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird":
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
Shadow of a crow.
My mood shifts
with my attention.
I was reminded of a section of Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird":
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
Shadow of a crow.
My mood shifts
with my attention.
April 1: Dead blackbird
Kristen Lindquist
A friend tells me today how, walking on a beach in February, she and her husband came across a dead red-winged blackbird. The bird was untouched, a male, black with bright red and yellow feathers on its wings like epaulettes. He was heading north early, hoping to get to the best territory ahead of the others--but he seems to have made the journey a little too soon. He probably froze to death, dropping out of the sky from cold and exhaustion, one of the harsh statistics of migration. He may have flown all the way from South America before he landed on that beach in New Hampshire.
Some impulse made my friend want to keep the bird's body, rather than just tossing it back into the waves. So she brought it home, five hours away, and tucked it in her freezer between the peas and the shrimp. She doesn't know what to do with it now. She's not even legally supposed to have a blackbird in her freezer; the Migratory Bird Act prohibits owning even a single feather of a migratory bird, though most of us do. I think she wrote a poem about it. She might donate it to a nearby college's biology program. Or give it an elaborate burial.
No meal left for gulls,
the blackbird's body, preserved,
becomes a relic.
Some impulse made my friend want to keep the bird's body, rather than just tossing it back into the waves. So she brought it home, five hours away, and tucked it in her freezer between the peas and the shrimp. She doesn't know what to do with it now. She's not even legally supposed to have a blackbird in her freezer; the Migratory Bird Act prohibits owning even a single feather of a migratory bird, though most of us do. I think she wrote a poem about it. She might donate it to a nearby college's biology program. Or give it an elaborate burial.
No meal left for gulls,
the blackbird's body, preserved,
becomes a relic.
May 3: Conclave
Kristen Lindquist
My mom and I sat out on her deck after work today, enjoying the gusty warm wind driving the clouds over the river. Clouds and big patches of blue marbled the sky. Wind rushed and sussed through leaves budding in many shades of bright green along the water. The air was as muggy as a summer afternoon before a rainstorm. Somewhere in the woods across the road, a snapping turtle the size of a dinner plate was laying her eggs.
Above us in the trees the blackbirds and grackles were holding a conclave. My mom says they gather every morning and every evening, just hanging out making a racket together. The blackbirds were particularly vocal, their buzzy trilling songs wafting down from on high. Every now and then the flock would fly across the lawn into a pine tree, the grackles standing out in silhouette because of their larger size and vertical, rudder-like tail. Then they'd fly back. Mostly they just perched there together, all facing in the same direction, a small flock of black birds making all manner of companionable squeaks, chucks, and squawks. Males awaiting females. Not much different than a bunch of guys hanging out in a bar. As the sun sank lower, a peeper joined in the chorus. A vulture swooped by on a gust of wind. Doves cooed softly.
There are few things more relaxing than just sitting by the water, watching birds with my mom.
As I drove away, I hadn't gotten far down the road when I saw a black shape in front of my car: a snapping turtle. I stopped, put on the hazard lights, then found a stick to try to push her across, to hurry her along. That had the opposite effect, as she turned and jumped, snapping at the stick/me. I went to Mom for help, but she said turtles cross the road here all the time and that this one would be fine. Sure enough, my mother knew best. As we watched, the turtle hustled across the road and continued into the woods on the water side--what she'd been trying to do all along.
At my mother's house
blackbirds converse with grackles,
turtles safely pass.
Above us in the trees the blackbirds and grackles were holding a conclave. My mom says they gather every morning and every evening, just hanging out making a racket together. The blackbirds were particularly vocal, their buzzy trilling songs wafting down from on high. Every now and then the flock would fly across the lawn into a pine tree, the grackles standing out in silhouette because of their larger size and vertical, rudder-like tail. Then they'd fly back. Mostly they just perched there together, all facing in the same direction, a small flock of black birds making all manner of companionable squeaks, chucks, and squawks. Males awaiting females. Not much different than a bunch of guys hanging out in a bar. As the sun sank lower, a peeper joined in the chorus. A vulture swooped by on a gust of wind. Doves cooed softly.
There are few things more relaxing than just sitting by the water, watching birds with my mom.
As I drove away, I hadn't gotten far down the road when I saw a black shape in front of my car: a snapping turtle. I stopped, put on the hazard lights, then found a stick to try to push her across, to hurry her along. That had the opposite effect, as she turned and jumped, snapping at the stick/me. I went to Mom for help, but she said turtles cross the road here all the time and that this one would be fine. Sure enough, my mother knew best. As we watched, the turtle hustled across the road and continued into the woods on the water side--what she'd been trying to do all along.
At my mother's house
blackbirds converse with grackles,
turtles safely pass.