Tag: writing

A Bluebird in 8 Ways

Published on by The Starry-eyed MermaidLeave a comment 

A BLUEBIRD IN EIGHT WAYS
                           ~ After Wallace Stevens
 
I

A poet is a bluebird
who drizzles the sky
with indanthrene songs 

II

I am making words
out of the bluebird’s tongue,
littered on the paper 
like a rejection letter.

III

The bluebird looks at me
with its reticent eye - 
wants to sprinkle lies
in the blackbird’s ear.

IV

I have no time for cheats.
Bluebirds are full of infidelity,
wagging their sweet 
little tails at the worms.

V

I know a fine song
if it licks my heels.
I smile and my breast heaves
at the fortissimo.

VI

When the bluebird flies away
the chicks’ chasm-jaws 
snatch at a stopped watch.

VII

The snow dusts the blue wings.
Makes snow angels on the ice.
I fall, my womb a pomegranate.

VIII

I never did fit in a box.
Too big dreams for a small forest.
No blackbirds with carbon plumage.
I want diamonds. 

Copyright © Sarah Drury 2022


Wallace Stevens, (1954), 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York. Random House.


Images by krstnwatts0 and Johnny Gunn from Pixabay

Daffodils

Published on by The Starry-eyed MermaidLeave a comment

A few years ago I was invited to write and perform some poetry with an ecological theme. I have always been reminded of Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’ every time I see a group of wind turbines, and it inspired me to write this poem:

Daffodils
      
         *after 'Daffodils' - William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o’er fracking lines.
When all at once I saw a crowd,
a host of pure white wind turbines.
Besides the mines, beneath ozone
each one a hand of God, alone.

Continuous as the stars which choke,
polluted in the filthiest way.
They stretched in never-ending droves,
fighting for justice on the smoggy day.
Four hundred I saw at a gaze - 
spiralling heads in polluted haze.


The wind around them danced but they,
battled in their fight for energy.
An eco-warrior could not be gay,
in a battle for survival of ecology
I gazed and gazed – but could not think
what beauty before me, a carbon-free link.

For oft, when on my bed I lie
In despair or in a futile mood,
they spark a hope within my soul,
of a planet-saving attitude.
And then my heart with gratitude shines
and dances with the wind turbines. 

©2022 Sarah Drury