Poem 19. A Socially distanced hoopoe. Poetry challenge of 26 poems for Nature.

Hoopoe visiting Navasola in Autumn

Abubilla in Spanish, Upupa epops in Latin.

 

 

 So much is changing and Autumn is upon us again. This hoopoe visited close to the Navasola house last Autumn. Where has the year gone? Usually with lots of activity, things to do and most important people to see and be with. I am trying to catch up with that at the moment amidst covid anxieties and rules for ever changing. Perhaps we need to be wary like the wild ones are. This hoopoe stayed for a while and I enjoyed the time spent together but at a discreet distance and ‘glass’ barrier! I have been thinking of a collection of poems with ‘Sitting on a porch’ observations. But there are also quite a few from looking out of my writing sanctuary window. Rain should also be due next week in our Sierra and most welcome after fires raged south of us for days in the Almonaster region of Huelva.

 

From Through the Window Poems.

The Visit of the Hoopoe

I see you.

Through the window.

I do not usually see you.

Among the many resident birds.

And those that stay for summer.

You prefer the pines and grasslands.

 

Not out of the blue but into the green

You arrive to seek to survive

Flash of chestnut, almost unseen

By the wet rocks and moss

Your long beak, slender fills with life

Tiny ants, flitting flies, wriggling worms

Ready to die to give strength to you.

Beneath the Autumn mulch, much squirms

Through the window our eyes follow

Your chestnut feathers, black white bars

A round eye looking, a crown on head

To show you are one of nature’s stars.

You stop to look,to listen hard, to us perhaps?

Trying not to disturb your path through grass

We stumble to remember your elegant steps,

We must focus on and zoom through glass.

 

Unseen, a barrier between us and the wild that visit

A bird on a journey to a better place

A sudden encounter so camera not ready

But still we draw in so close to your eyes.

I have not yet reached my target. Please help me help nature in these uncertain and challenging times.

 

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