A birdy poem for a cloudy day

The simultaneously funny, wise, and poignant Jess at Life With Gusto just solved a mystery for me: what NaBloPoMo means (National Blog Posting Month, where bloggers pledge to make daily posts for the month of November). I could have looked it up before now, but I knew another, more savvy person would get around to it (thanks, Jess!).

I'm 12 days late to the party, but as Einstein said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." (The only reason I know that quote is because it's a chapter opener in a book I'm copyediting. Thanks, clever and very personable client!) Jess is holding her own version of NaBLoPoMo, blogging every day until her next baby is born. I don't have that kind of stamina, so I'm going to try NaBloPo2.5 (National Blog Posting Two-and-a-Half Weeks). Today, a birdy poem:


Saline air
Clouds aching to rain
Cormorant and kingfisher together on the dock
A chaos of fish flop in the shallow water
Three mallards shoot by,
wheezing like squeaky bed springs with every wing beat.

The world outside my own head:
it cracks me open and washes me clean.

Things I am grateful for today

• The sound Mute Swans' wings make as they fly overhead, like a piece of rusty old farm machinery shooting through the air.
• The Song Sparrow who was singing on my morning walk. I didn't even realize I'd missed your call all winter long until I heard it again today. I'm glad you no longer have to huddle down in the grass, hiding from the bitter wind.
• The rat-tat-tat of the Belted Kingfisher flying up and down the harbor. You're such a mystery to me -- darting by so fast, appearing and then disappearing, like the Phantom. You nest somewhere within the earth on the banks of the harbor each spring, but you do an amazing job of keeping the location a secret.
• The wail of a gull that I mistook for a baby for a second.
• The Northern Cardinals who are going off like alarm clocks all over the neighborhood. Spring! Spring! Spring!
• The Buffleheads who spent most of the winter in Milford harbor, the first time I've seen that happen. You guys have no idea how cute you are, diving down then popping up like rubber duckies in a bath tub. Stay. Have babies.