April Poetry: Wetland

Poem #11 for National Poetry Month

This is a more recent poem. It was one of those poems I wrote in one sitting and did little editing and it was accepted by the first magazine to which I sent it. I call those gift poems. This is also one of my “happy” poems.

The inspiration behind this poem was simply sitting outside and looking up. We live near a wetland preserve and a wide assortment of birds fly overhead every day. Many of them are waterfowl. A recent reading of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” inspired me to put pen (pixels) to paper (screen) and this is the result.

This was originally published in The Rat’s Ass Review.

(Poems are in alphabetical order by the author’s last name)

Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash

Wetland

Living near a wetland is like
having God as your next-door neighbor. 
Dizzying duck, winged wine bottle,
ass-heavy and awkward,
paddles through a lake of air.
Wild geese follow a flocked V,
the typeset of their DNA,
honking wildly in the traffic of clouds.
Mated pair of sandhill cranes hoot and rattle
overhead, one leg stretched behind, a kite’s tail,
avian Ian Anderson,
one-legged stork fluting to rock n’roll.
Tall reeds on marshy land,
conceal nests of future generations
while snapping turtles cross the road with 
cars in idling witness to inching migration.
The sky ablaze in auburn and aubergine,
slowing the heartbeat of the land,
whisper the coming of dusk,
softly, the swan tucks her head.


Originally published in Rat’s Ass Review Fall/Winter 2024