This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge from PoW Heather. She challenged us to have a conversation with nature! “Choose something from the natural world: an animal, insect, plant, rock, or whatever catches your attention. Address it directly and look at it with fresh eyes.”
I’ve been in coastal Maine all week, enjoying nature, especially the birds. I decided to write a poem about the Blue Heron and use an Irish poetry forms, the Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire — which is three syllable lines put into quatrains with an abab cdcd rhyme scheme.
I wrote it — and then felt like it didn’t do the heron justice. Today I wrote a Shakespearean sonnet. So — here are two, not one, poems for the beautiful blue heron. The first is the sonnet; the second is the Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire.
You pick your way along the craggy rock
You pause, you watch, you listen all the time
Is that a fish? Above, is that a hawk?
You freeze, become a statue – so sublime
But once a year you gather in a throng
You court with sticks, choose partner, build a nest
Together warm the eggs, hatch, raise the young
Then leave because alone is where you’re best
You curve your neck into an “S” and fly
Drag spindly legs behind you as you go
Broad wingspan, steady rhythm thrums the sky
Time to return to living life solo
To be alone does not make you forlorn
It means this is the life to which you’re born
You stand tall
Motionless
Feathers grey
Opalesce
“Why are you,”
I inquire,
“Always lone,
Grand flier?”
You stand still
Carved of stone
Blink your eye
Cover blown
Single bird
Blue heron
Rule the strand
Beach baron
Being one
Not a curse
Be unfed
Would be worse
All alone
You can fish
Minnows, eels
You vanquish
Solitaire
Tall and proud
Hermit life
Head not bowed
Both of these are so beautiful!!
Two beautiful yet very different expressions of the heron. I must say, I’m rather taken with the Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire poetry form.
The blue heron is so worthy of an ode, and you did two!! These are both lovely. The Irish form is new to me.
Sally, I love how your “beach baron” commands both the sonnet’s broad wingspan and those tiny three-syllable perches, such a delightful double tribute to solitude without sorrow!
~David
Two poems, two forms, one heron—and what a difference. The sonnet gives us the arc of seasonal partnership and return; the Irish form gives us the intimate conversation, the ‘why.’ Together they’re a complete portrait: the heron knows both belonging and solitude. Brilliant decision to honor it both ways, Sally
hi, Sally❣️
Just wanna let you know that this week’s W3, hosted by our beloved Khadija, is now live:
Much love,
David
As with tree poems, I’m drawn to heron poems, and you have done very well by this blue heron here,
What a huge compliment! Thank you!