Poetry Challenge. PoeM 24 : The Black Kite

Milvana by Ruth Konigsberger

As many of you will know I am trying to finish this 26 poetry challenge I started during our Spanish lockdown experience. We are currently entering back into that phase here in the North of the UK and I still have three poems to go. However, we have managed to spend time with Jessica Rose, our new arrival and focus of my last post. All is going well.

This poem is forDverse poets open link night, always a source of inspiration and able to kick start me. http://www.dversepoets.com

This poem is about the very successful and world wide species of black kites. The drawing is by Ruth Konisgsberger and is part of the portrait of the character of the black kite in my novel. I will do a post on this as soon as I finish these poems! Black kites do visit the Sierra on their migration, some breed here. However, nowadays the red kites seem more common.

The Migrating Kites ( Milvus migrans or Milano negro in Spanish)

Our Milvana migrates from here,

Here to somewhere over there,

Over the deserts to Afri Ka.

All kinds of kites have flown

All around the world wide web,

Connected by genes from ancient

Almost Jurassic dinosaur times.

Archaeopteryx, the mother bird

First flew the world.

Black kites, by many other names

Milano, Milhafre

Live long lives of 20 years or so

With brains that may adapt

To many different climes.

Some flew over wide waters                                                                                                     

To islands in the vast Atlantic

To the Azores.

Some flew to Gondawa

And learnt how

To use burning branches

To flush out scared prey.

Before wild fires spread so fast

To destroy whole forests,

In changing times

With wildlife crimes.

Others in the East

Fly around the temples

Of the many headed Gods

Brahmin souls in flight

Pariahs picking the bones

Of the dead.

Here in the Sierra

Not many black kites

Now fly.

Does anyone care

Why?

Wishing everyone a safe and purposeful time in such a difficult era.

For anyone wishing to sponsor the poems I will put up some new links for the charity Birdlife International who coordinate the conservation of birds across our human borders.

Poem 22 and 23. The Stork brings our Rose

My plan was to finish my poetry challenge by October 4^th when the cancelled London marathon is run in a limited way. But plans can often go astray particularly when babies decide it is their time to be born. We welcome to our family the tiny Jessica Rose. And for my next two poems I will honour her with a stork and rose poem!  That will leave me three more to go, which are almost ready. I apologise too for the link to my fundraising page as without me knowing it had a time limit. Thank you to all those who have contributed or tried. I will put a final link when I have finished  the 26 poems to Birdlife International and explain the work they do.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

A  Haiku for Jessica Rose

Stork’s beak with small sprog

Or sprig of eglantine rose.

Brings Spring to Autumn

There are wild roses at Navaselva and they delicately entwine themselves up some of the young trees. Often they grow on the edge of a tree line looking for light. The eglantine rose for me of Shakespearean fame, Rosa rubiginosa, or the dog rose, Rosa canina find places to flourish on our finca and have effective thorny defences. Rosa canina was known for possibly curing dog bites. There may be other types too and I will now need to investigate next Spring. It seems there are many roses by many different names and types of leaves to distinguish their species.  Perhaps the wild rose can be symbolic of the need for women to be both tough and tender as highlighted by Maya Angelou. Certainly pregnancy and birth can be tough times and then the tenderness of love for a new human and the need to protect.

As for storks I have to be honest I have not seen them near our woodland. But there are some that nest in the local villages. And further along the road to Portugal there are many storks that nest on the pylons and the trees by the river. When we visit the Doñana wetlands in January there are 100s of storks nesting in trees and plentiful supplies of food in the marshy borders and rice fields along the Guadalquivir river.

It seems that the legends about stork have ancient history from Egyptian and Greek times, although there seems to be some confusion over whether the spiritual birds of birth and rebirth, carrying souls were cranes, herons or storks. Another interesting stork legend was the association with oregano, a well-known healing herb with antibiotic qualities that storks were seen with in their beaks. Oregano grows abundantly at Navaselva and I swear by its healing properties.  I use it for my gums and for any sign of a sore throat. However, the stork in the haiku has a sprig of a wild rose in its large beak!

The main stork legend grew in Northern Europe when storks arrived in Spring and were seen as signs of hope and family fidelity. Hans Christian Andersen’s story ‘The Storks’ consolidated the tradition we love to keep of the stork bringing the baby.

I have adapted a poem I wrote some years ago about storks based on Yeats ‘The Wild Swans of Coole’ into my 26 word format.

This drawing of the stork comes from an art class with my friend the artist Ruth Konigsberger whose paintings and drawings often accompany these poems. The classes began before lockdown and have started up again and bring us all a joy as she is not just a wonderful artist but a very skilled teacher. Our focus was parallel perspective and dark and shade.

Poem 22 Storks in 26 words

Among what places the storks will build

Their hopes, on pylons or spires,

With God’s desires fulfilled

Where wonder never tires.

All prosper where they perch.

Stork in parallel perspective