The Catbird (John James Audubon), Sonnet #468

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.


















As if ashamed of its homely feathers,

The cowbird disowns its young in the nest.

In those it didn’t build it abandons 

An egg among the eggs of its betters,

Who raise the cowbird along with the rest.

(The intruder will steal from the small ones.)

Parents who can identify their own,

Catbirds fling the parasites out like stones.

They mew incessantly, then sing countless

Notes per minute — clucks, whines, gurgles, clicks, squawks,

Imitations of other birds but hawks.

Even more than most, the catbird’s restless;

Endlessly curious or vigilant,

It flies — the only time it is silent.

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (John James Audubon), Sonnet #458

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here:
My Human Disguise.

















The grosbeaks war at my backyard feeder,

The males windmilling their black and white

Wings at each other until one relents.

And the female? For now none heed her,

Fueling themselves for the next long flight.

If she left first would they know where she went?

The male’s breast is fuchsia more than rose,

A color less real but iridescent,

A jewel in a ring when the birds’ wings close —

In flight they stir red, black and white air

(Yes, everywhere in nature red is rare).

The first seen in spring seems a miracle

In a yard home of sparrow and grackle.

When they leave they fly with their own free will.

Northern Harrier Hawk (Audubon), Sonnet #286

The Red-tail tracks the field mouse by its pee
With eyes that see inside nothing to see.
At one hundred and twenty miles an hour
It dives from great heights to clutch and devour.

But the Harrier doesn’t hunt by surprise.
She intimidates and terrorizes.
I've watched her, the golden chest and white rump,
Wings broad and balletically whirling pump,
Cross and cross low the same small field of grain,
Crash to the ground, then hunt the field again.
I first saw her flying straight at my eyes.
She must not have seen my human disguise.

Steering around me as she would a pole,
She dropped behind me and swallowed a vole.

Pileated Woodpecker in Flight (David Mintz, photographer), Sonnet #273

They say his lost cousin, ivory-billed,
Once chopped down a sycamore and when locked
In a cabin with a bobcat, he killed
The beast with a stab, flinging splinters, knocked
A hole in the door and flew. Man, he mocked.
I don't believe his laughter is extinct.
The pileated's eternal drumming
Is always distant, like tiny thunder.
He's flown right over me. I flinched. I blinked.
His loping flight, black and white wings strumming
The forest light, is the end of wonder.
Here he's caught, head turned around and under,
Flying, crest upside down -- impossible.
Yet, a thing of feathers, flesh, blood, and bill.

OUR NATURE (Sonnets #158 and #159)

#159

Barred Owl (Audubon)

Late last night, the owl settled on our shepherd's hook
Outside my bedroom window. A feeder hangs there --
Mice and chipmunks burrow below and filch the seed.
I watched him for an hour. His head bent down to look
For prey, three times he lifted his pale face to stare
At me, but I was nothing compared to his need.
His head pivoted three hundred sixty degrees,
Slowly surveying the snow-covered yard and trees.
Otherwise, he was still; his art was vigilance,
Like a sailor in a crow's nest looking for land.
Then he crouched and bobbed and dropped, his patience
Goaded. A moment later his great wings fanned
And lifted him to a limb where he ripped apart
A mouse and devoured its still trembling heart.

#158

Wind God and Thunder God (Tawaraya Sotatsu)

As children we feared the thunder,
Though the wind willed us to wonder.
We were such small receptacles,
Anything that caused emotions
To overflow were spectacles,
Like typhoon-tormented oceans.
A clap of thunder convinced me
Our house would collapse instantly,
But I could lean into strong gales
And laugh, arms outstretched like taut sails.
The gods don't always indulge us,
Like these fiercely smiling fellows.
They are about their own business --
The boom of death and hell's bellows.