Today, I am featuring an entry from Jane Yolen’s journal. It follows her revision process as she works on a recent poem.
Tag Archives: daily poem
Coot Morning
This morning we walked at Red Rocks Lake near Fruita, Colorado. The golden leaves on cottonwoods by the Colorado are turning brittle and brown. Many have fallen off.
The air is on edge with flocks of birds headed south along the flyway. Some land in the trees. Others rest on the lakes. It is a time of nervousness, excitement, and peril.
For today write about:
- a journey
- a local animal migration
- being a target
- hunting
- a refuge
Near the end of the day instead of its start, here’s mine:
Coots
It doesn’t seem fair
that coots
should be so
sadly designed,
with feet
not as webbed
as more
efficient water birds
and wings so weak
they must
run across
the water
to take off
from the lake.
On winter ice
they wander
among larger
birds like
goslings.
Even their
name is
plain and simple.
though tinged
with shady character.
Where they go
in summer
I do not know,
but every fall
they flock back.
Though less
than fair,
the coots
endure.
copyright Linda J. Armstrong, 10/28/2012; all rights reserved
One Way to Wonder 