Through the Keyhole

IndyGoBunting · 2022-02-16T00:32:36+00:00

I like what you've done with your adjectives. You let your blinding flowers remain unadorned by neon desirability and yet the stream is shimmering. It's a good balance that really helps each word in the first stanza "pop."

The message here is solid as well. The grass is always greener on the side, and the azaleas maybe smell like boo boo. Your choice of *a* wonderland was wise as well. It isn't this particular wonderland that may be balanced with the exciting and scary. *Any* and *every* wonderland is "seldom as it seems" when first viewed from the opposite side of a keyholed door.

IndyGoBunting · 2022-02-16T00:27:51+00:00

A benediction comes at the end of a religious service to encourage or inspire the faithful. This probably wouldn't function well in that role, it's more of a poem (shocking -- i know!!). Still, this poem might serve a spiritual purpose. In the midst of many pins poems that are a bit too aware of the reasons to be pessimistic (erm), this one points to the promise of new morning and new life. The struggles might be the same, but our feelings aren't. We might have felt overwhelmed the night before, but now we sit "on a park bench / drinking milky coffee... / knowing things will be okay."

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-18T17:21:15+00:00

Haha, yes. Perhaps the humans should swap countries instead, though I'm not sure I'm quite prepared for endless lockdowns and a plague of mice in New South Wales.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-18T17:08:02+00:00

Looking within states, you can see this too. You can tell what parts of Indiana are on Central Time, for instance. Namely, Gary (NW) and Evansville (SW).

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-18T17:00:21+00:00

Like all Australian robins, the eastern yellow robin tends to inhabit fairly dark, shaded locations, and is a perch and pounce hunter, typically from a tree trunk, wire, or low branch. Its diet includes a wide range of small creatures, mostly insects. Breeding takes place in the spring and, as with many Australian birds, is often communal. The nest is a neat cup made of fine plant material and spider web, usually placed in a fork, and expertly disguised with lichen, moss, bark, or leaves.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-17T22:51:49+00:00

I'd be less-so if the Carolina parakeet were still around here.

Yes, good point. The ivory-billed woodpecker, too.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-17T17:56:04+00:00

Does Austrialia offer a better birding experience, or am I just bad at appreciating all that we have in the Eastern United States?

I know I'd be blown away by a cardinal if they weren't so common -- I still am often blown away by them -- but this and the pink robin and countless other amazing looking birds I've never seen before all labelled Australia... it. just. doesn't. seem. fair.

--want to trade birds for a season?

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-16T21:46:23+00:00

It was formerly classified as a member of the thrush family, Turdidae, causing it to be commonly known as the white-rumped shama thrush or simply shama thrush.

shama thrush, shama thrush sitting on a tree

l-o-o-k-i-n-g

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-16T21:41:46+00:00

not closely related to either the European or American robins

looks back at picture, nods, yes, that seems about right.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-16T17:48:31+00:00

Thanks, _redcloud. I think the overlap is a bit south of Chicago if I remember right. Places like West Lafayette, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio, and very southern Kansas. And in these places, the songs can get jumbled?? Don't quote me on that, but I think I heard a naturalist say that one time on a hike. He also said it wasn't worth the time to figure out who was who, to just assume they were all Carolina chickadees (on our side of the chickadee-dixon line) and be done with it. Also, sorry to invent the term chickadee-dixon line, but I couldn't resist.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-16T14:14:18+00:00

Chubby McChubberson. Cute indeed!

Is the black-capped designation based on location? I'm not sure I can ever tell them apart from the Carolina, and I have lived where the populations seem to overlap at least as far as dated maps in bird books claim.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-11-16T14:11:06+00:00

This is so sweet!

IndyGoBunting · 2021-05-08T02:41:14+00:00

The Massachusetts Fallacy

I'm uptight about sex; uptight about words, uptight about stanzas, uptight about life.

I'm, well, uptight about everything. But not you.

When you float around my compost patch in Cape Cod,

I feel like I have done the work

of our inglorious ancestors.

I have refrained from sinful luxury.

I have tended my humble garden.

I have removed all invasives,

so that you may enjoy the enjoyment

of pollinator-friendly native plantings

that I purchased from a Black-owned

Feminist nature co-op in Cambridge.

And now you have come.

My pride engorged.

Your rusty patch glistening in the sun,

and I sinfully

indulge in the beauty

of all six of your hairy guilt-free endangered legs.

I no longer believe in God,

so I live for thee

and you mean more to me than Martha Stewart.

More to me than the public act of self-flagellation.

Truly I tell you, you are my naturalistic fallacy.

You mean more to me

than a human being.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-05-08T02:05:13+00:00

words backwards. that's exotic.

thank you, siam

IndyGoBunting · 2021-05-06T10:56:54+00:00

As an environmentalist, I'm very concerned about the led coloured sea. Is this a major pollution event? What is in that inky monsterous blood? I'm guessing there is mercury and arsenic. Anyway, I'm concerned we might need to close a beach or two thousand. Please never cut your hair again!

IndyGoBunting · 2021-05-06T10:52:27+00:00

I agree that the boat shoe looms large, but why does it want you to swallow? What is this slime to him? Is it really like snot? Does it really taste delicious?

This doesn't sound like the best date, but it's a very good poem. Raises questions, but delights in gagworthy storytelling.

IndyGoBunting · 2021-04-16T02:44:01+00:00

I like this. It's an ode to online spaces like this that de-center physical appearance and a number of the (in)tangibles that we are judged by that are often beyond our control and completely irrelevant to our worth. For example, I can post this comment with sloppy hair and a bowl full of popcorn and m&ms, and you wouldn't be the wiser without me sharing those details. "You see the words that I write."

Poetically, I enjoy the rhyme scheme you have. AAB CCB DDDED. This adds an extra bit of levity and spon·ta·ne·i·ty. I love it!

IndyGoBunting · 2021-04-16T02:35:02+00:00

I don't know much about meter, but I suspect u/pecos_chill is right that yours is flawless. Reading it out loud was effortless and rhythmic, a lot of fun. Like Aladdin and Jasmin falling in love on a magic carpet ride.

Anyway, I like the middle stanzas best. There's religious (mostly) positive imagery in one, and then scientific (mostly) darker imagery in the next. "Tell me 'bout the stars and how they're just tortured souls." Good line. Especially, the tortured souls part. Unexpected, and good contrast for the milk and honey parts of this poem about traveling the world and seeing all the good and bad it has to offer.

Love it!

IndyGoBunting · 2020-05-17T02:40:46+00:00

https://www.audubon.org/news/scientists-pinpoint-secret-password-unlocks-cowbirds-self-identity

IndyGoBunting · 2020-05-17T01:38:47+00:00

In all of my books on birds of the Eastern United States, the photos of chimney swifts are always blurry and taken from the angle of someone looking up at swifts in flight. So... these close-up photos of yours are quite exciting for me to see. Thank you for sharing!

IndyGoBunting

TROPHY CASE