Wring? Sprinter?

This season has no name. It falls between winter (when we can count on snow and cold) and spring (when we can hope for lilacs out of the dead land).

There being not many buds and not any berries yet, the redpolls keep coming to the feeder and to the detritus of seeds dropped in all the excitement through the winter: seeds now exposed as the drifts slowly melt/sublimate. And so it is that the redpolls get my first haiku.

Redpoll

Sun-crust forms on drifts.
Short beak digs for scattered seeds;
talons grip the snow.

Redpoll feeding on seed scatter under a feeder

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13 Responses to Wring? Sprinter?

  1. Jim Taylor says:

    Words struggle to show
    Paradox of sun and snow
    Bodied in a bird

    Well done! Bravo!
    Jim T

  2. Tom Watson says:

    Well done, Isabel and Jim.

    Picking up on the phrase “lilacs out of dead land,” I offer…
    In dead land, lilacs
    stir, waiting for the spring to
    welcome their rebirth.

    Tom

  3. barbara carlson says:

    Bird food

    rotten snow
    buried seeds
    no problem

  4. I am sure Christina is happy to have inspired your collaboration, as well as to have sparked further poetic outpourings. The red poll looks to me like a wounded warrior, which is too sad a topic on a day like this, full of sun and wind and other things sublime and sublimate.

    • Isabel Gibson says:

      Laurna – 🙂 Thank you. On the redpoll, yes, we’d prefer a cheerier image. On the poetry, I did think you might weigh in . . .

      • Your haiku is perfection, Isabel. It says all that needs to be said about anything I am thinking when I look at the redpoll — and I am thinking especially now about my husband who may have seen his last wring and sprinter.

  5. Pingback: Proposal Haiku – Proposal Land

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