(These poems
about birds are wriiten and copyrighted by Jody Hildreth with
whose kind permission they are reprinted here. Thanks, Jody,
for your beautiful poems and for sharing them with the world.)
The Beauty
of Birds
by Jody Hildreth
Each bird is carved into existence
by God
Each feather is hand painted by Him
From the royal blue of the Hyacinth Macaw
To the blinding yellow of the Goldfinch
From the emerald green of the Quetzal
To the deep blood-red of the Scarlet Tanager
Is it these colors
That make birds beautiful?
For even without color
A bird has beauty
Picture the setting
Its soft light consuming colors
Creating silhouettes
One silhouette takes form
It is snapped from a cliff
Yet it does not fall
The shape changes
Two wings stretch outward
They remain motionless
Slowly the bird rises
On invisible thermals
Slowly it grows smaller
Until it disappears into the painted clouds
What bird was it?
I saw no color
And still it was beautiful
The Female
Hornbill
by Jody Hildreth
A peculiar bird
With a large curved bill
Enters
a prison
Of her own free will.
This prison is small.
It is inside a tree.
She enters
alone
Without ever a plea.
She seals herself in,
But leaves a small crack
Through
which she is fed
And protected from attack
She sits on her eggs
For weeks all alone
In her
dark prison cell
That she calls her home.
Four weeks go by.
The nestlings appear.
Their
chirping is heard
When father draws near.
He alone feeds them
For up to three weeks.
Then the
young can escape
With their hammering beaks.
The family united
Is now free to roam
Far from
that prison
They once called their home.
The Hummingbird
by
Jody Hildreth
With hyper wings
In mid-air hung
To sip sweet nectar
With brush-tipped tongue.
The Ivory-billed
Woodpecker
by
Jody Hildreth
A woodpecker?
Who cares?
So it
hammers on trees.
I don't
need it to live.
What did
it do to me?
A woodpecker!
That's right!
Once native
to our land.
Now may
be extinct.
We can't
lend it a hand.
Other birds.
Near extinct.
What will
your view now be?
Is their
life worth enough
To help
keep them in trees?
Other birds.
Needing help.
Their
land taken away.
Will they
be here tomorrow?
Is this
their last day?
