Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Birds

Photo Credit: Deepak Amembal's Magiceye

Midweek Motif ~ Birds

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?"----Rumi

"The science of ornithology has grown so rapidly because the poetry of birds has led so many people to study them. Wholly to divorce the science from the poetry would injure the science"----Alexander Skutch

"Valmiki is the first , the father, of all poets. He is also the first known birdwatcher, and it is his bird watching that has occasioned his invention: from shoka (grief) comes shloka (poetry)"----Leonard Nathan, Diary of a Left-Handed birdwatcher

"O lyric Love, half angel and half bird. And all a wonder and a wild desire."----Robert Browning

This week will see avian verses.

For thousands of years these feathered beauties have fascinated the creative minds. They have been celebrated in literature, from the ancient Greek poets to the Renaissance poets to the Haiku masters of the seventeenth century Japan to the English Romantics of the nineteenth century.

This great connection and fond relationship with the birds continue.

Today your poems must be connected with birds. It may include fictional birds or even bird watching.

Some bird poems for you:

A Haiku 

by Matsuo Basho

On a withered branch
A crow has alighted
Nightfall in autumn

Ode to Bird watching
by Pablo Neruda

Now
Let's look for birds!
The tall iron branches
in the forest,
The dense
fertility on the ground
The world
is wet.
A dewdrop or raindrop
shines
a diminutive star
among the leaves.
The morning time
mother earth
is cool.
The air
is like a river
which shakes
the silence.
It smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.
Overheard
a crazy song.
It's a bird.
How
out of its throat
smaller than a finger
can there fall the waters
of its song?
Luminous ease!
Invisible
power
torrent
of music
in the leaves.
Sacred conversations!
Clean and fresh washed
is this
day resounding
like a green dulcimer.
(The rest is here)

Mockingbirds
by Mary Oliver

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
(The rest is here)

Note: If you use the photo of this prompt please refer to the source.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.
                         (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be - Bullying)