This is the 16th poem in my collection of twenty children’s poems about birds I began over ten years ago, “Pearl’s Own Book of Birds”. The first poem in the collection was published in Compendium: The Kitchen Sink January 29, 2023 and can be found in the archives by going directly to my substack site. I have published poems from the collection every month since then.
‘P’ is for Pelican and Pearl Pearl points at pelicans each time they pass over a pink sunset or like a Zen procession at the break of day. They push, effortless, along the beach or have a diving party where fishing boats prow into the wash. Pearl points from the pool where Nana and Mama hold her paddling to teach her to paddle too. There are the pelicans, Pearl! Plying their perfect ‘V’s they pilot the wind far far above the peal of the sea through the shouts of gulls in the hot sharp day, and then they dip and parade with wing tips nearly touching the peak of a wave before it pipes, falls, and foams in pursuit of the sand. But they escape! And there you are, Pearl, posing in the sun, the prettiest, sharpest child in the pool, when pelicans pick up and lift over this place and you laugh and point as they push across the sun, glide like a pod of silent ancient planes powered alone by the pleasure of their ease in space. “Pearl! There are the pelicans!” we tell you and you point into that paradise of clouds as they pass and glide out of our light to dive and pierce the purple waves, rise into another perfect formation and then for the first time, Pearl, you whisper their name.
The inspiration for this collection came from time I spent birdwatching with my grandchild Pearl. During our visits we often took Pearl to the beach or other natural areas in Florida to look for and observe birds. For a young person who, when we started these outings, was just learning to talk, Pearl showed unusual interest and acumen in spotting and watching birds and liked looking at my bird identification handbooks, especially on outings to the national seashore. I think the picture below illustrates this quite well. Each poem features a different bird. I’ll send them out one at a time interspersed with my other writing via Compendium: The Kitchen Sink. The majority of the photographs that accompany the poems are mine, but a few have been borrowed from free internet files and are not my own. Reminder: poetry from Compendium: The Kitchen Sink is best read directly from my substack site using a laptop or desktop. Iphones distort line ending and stanza integrity.