Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Her blue wing feathers!

The wood ducks, being tree ducks, like to perch on the patio railing
underneath the birdseed feeder. It's a daily thrill this time of year!


Those Summer Evenings

My father would, with a little squeak
and a shudder in the water pipes, 
turn on the garden hose, and sprinkle
the honeysuckle bushes clipped
to window height, so that later,
as we slept atop out rumpled sheets
with windows open to the scritch
of crickets, whatever breeze
might flirt its way between
our house and the neighbors'
would brush across the honeysuckle,
sweet and wet, and keep us cool.

Ted Kooser
Splitting an Order, Copper Canyon Press, 2014, page 71.

In the long-ago times of childhood, weather memories were stored away. Your task: write about one. Find a word like "skritch". Study the sounds in this poem; it will be worth your time!



2 comments:

  1. I usually can't get too close to Wood Ducks before they fly off. That is very cool-unless it's an April Fool's joke!

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    1. It's really true; they come for bird seed fallen from a feeder above the railing.
      Too this with zoom through window and cropped away about half the photo. The wood ducks are much shyer than the mallards. They and the wigeons (gone thia time of year) always fly when I bring out the cracked corn. But they come back and eat after I go back inside. I didn't think of any April Fools stuff this year.

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