Here is the 15th poem in my collection of twenty children’s poems about birds that 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.
Where Loon Songs Go in Winter All the little frozen lakes up here tell stories of loons that swing in over trees and circle hooting until they scoot across the water for a landing. In the silence of winter the quiet places these lakes live in remember that their springs and small streams feed the last places the loons can live water lapping up and under the brambles low willow, lilies, pickerel weed and reeds that keep the nests unknown to fox and raccoon, marten and swan. When wind in winter stills these waters well the loons lose their masterpiece markings and flee south to the Gulf Coast and beyond letting lifetime partners go on alone until the sun gets higher in the sky and they can reunite to find their flutes together again. These silent frozen lakes keep these stories safe like a dream of the magic that turns the world how the sun in the frigid latitudes finally grows long and hot in the weeds where loons piece together a sloppy bed. If the water goes down the loons don’t return. This is what the ice and snow and even the slow cold fishes know.
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.