May 2021
Author's Note: I’ve been writing poetry for decades and decades, but over the past ten years or
so I’ve been fortunate enough to spend two weekends a year at a retreat in central Wisconsin, in the company
of about a dozen other poets. We agreed in advance that we would spend our time on writing and on very little
else — with the exception of eating, sleeping, raising the occasional glass of wine, sharing our work, and exploring
our surroundings. The area happens to be loaded with wildlife, especially white-tailed deer and birds of all shapes
and personalities. This particular poem, in fact, is about one of the elegant sandhill cranes who frequent the neighborhood.
The Amazing Perseverance of the Sand-Hill Crane
Endangered species? Not this chick—she’s got
a built-in arsenal: claw, bill, and feather,
and soon she’ll pull her leggy act together,
gear up for the hunt. She’ll troubleshoot
the dales and dunes where eligible males
from her subgenus are inclined to loiter,
then browse around, observe, and reconnoiter
until she’s got her target by the tail.
Not for her, macaws that squall for freedom,
Not for her, the frowning peregrine;
She wouldn’t know an albatross from Adam
and doesn’t want some freckled featherbrain
puttering in the garden, spitting seeds.
One crane. One skinny crane. That’s all she needs.
©2021 Marilyn Taylor
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author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL