Miscellaneous Animal Poems 1

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Caught between the sea and land

The piping plover roves the sand

Like the blustery wind she braves,

Darts between the tumbling waves

Every day she acts the same

Embracing danger as a game

Her way of life a bit absurd

This lovely, fragile, funny bird!

Sammy the snake had a friend

Whom he bear-hugged real tightly, and then

   Gave a lonnnnnggggg slurpy suck

   And wished his friend luck

As the last inch slipped round the bend

Met his wife, at home, sipping a cup

She said "Sammy, you're going to erupt!"

   Is that why you're late?

   Was it something you ate??

And that's when he brought his friend up...

Today when beauty came my way, I almost didn't see

With mind distracted by some far-off common sort of thing

But there, beneath my feet, nature offered me, for free,

The finest, rarest color, from a dainty little wing

A feather, blessed with beads of dew; I held it in my hand

And marveled at a structure too wondrous to be made

By workers in a factory, which I had found, unplanned

Lying in the grass, hidden in the morning shade

Tiny nest, on the ground

Architect, nowhere found

Freshly fallen through the air

Untethered from a branch somewhere

A windy gust knocked it loose

From a lofty treetop roost

This lovely little woodland home

Lost in space, all alone

We say "home away from home,"

Seeing someone, as they roam,

Finding refuge, far away

In a place, where they stay

This nest, in contrast, rather sad

A home without its launching pad

From which young birds once learned to fly

Blind faith, leaping, into sky

But after holding in my hand

This tiny bird-made mossy land

Needles, lichens, leaves, and more...

Returned it to the forest floor

A bird perspective tugged at me

And in that moment, I could see

This home away from home had found

A resting place, on the ground!

Are we so clever, building homes

Commemorating life with poems

Thinking we have mastered time

Within our world of stilted rhyme?

Birds don't stop to think of these

Toiling high up in the trees

Every year, they make anew

A home within a home, with view

Real estate, away up high

Afterward, not asking why

Once fledgelings leave the home, it falls

   ... they'll build next year, when nature calls

On a gravel road today, beside the rain-washed wood

I saw a bright red spotted newt, who, resting on the sand

Had paused to smell the air just outside his neighborhood

I picked him up, quite gently, and I held him in my hand

Human-like, with twice the feet (I'm speaking tongue-in-cheek)

This perfect, tiny, four-leg beast with tiger lily hue

And black rimmed spots like eyes upon it's moistened back, so sleek

Blinked at me, I swear, as if to ask "Now who are you!?"

What if I had not looked down, today while on my hike

What if I stayed lost within the world of human care

I would have missed this friend, so small, so cute, so much alike

Myself - a living soul - and passed right by him resting there...

Ariel is our woodland friend

Who lives and sleeps beneath one end

Of our big deck, until midday

When she comes out to run and play

Then she likes to jump and hop

From stone to stone, then sit atop

A pleasant little granite shelf

Where she can preen, and wash herself

A chipmunk, yes, but mermaid, too

Upon the rock, where she can view

The lawn, in a bucolic scene,

Ocean waves of rolling green