Mourning Dove & Narcissus, detail, WIP, Michelle Kogan. © 2020, watercolor
Happy Poetry Friday and Happy National Poetry Month!
I’m sharing a poem, art, and pics of a mourning dove that visited me this week in my backyard garden. Actually a pair visited, for quite a long time… I’m very fortunate and happy to have this garden to retreat to, and to watch in wonder as everything comes up this spring…
HIDDEN BEAUTY
Stretch and preen…
Feathers spread fan-like,
drawing all eyes on your
nature beguiled pose.
Spring ground becomes your stage,
your silhouetted form offers
captivating beauty, momentarily,
captured in your Venus like stance.
Thank you mourning dove,
for sharing your hidden beauty
available only for selected few
to gaze upon in awe…
© 2020 Michelle Kogan
Here’s the pair of mourning doves…
I was looking for a poem to share about another mourning dove and came across JoAnn Balingit’s poem Brandywine Creek Preambles, which I was taken by. While it mentions a dove in the poem, it focuses on the creek, and is written in the voice of the creek. Read the “About this Poem” in the sidebar to find out more on the poem.
BRANDYWINE CREEK PREAMBLES
By JoAnn Balingit
2. In the year of my birth, billion-year-old Rock. Appalachia dapple grey.
3. I looked up at those loaves like a three-year-old met with giant mother’s naked ass. I watered her Toes. I ran and ran.
4. It’s good not to be dead I knew, in my own lap with the mourning dove.
5. Water drinkers hovered around me. Piedmont to fall line, grandparents to parents, coastal plain to marsh, my world of voices and sharp claws.
6. A high song spills from me and quiets never, not for Flood—
7. On summer weekends the city children the city children the city children ride their vinyl creatures down my Shoals.
8. I remember a chorus fell, old growth fell, white village growth, villagers’ low chorus with musket-fire, thunder-fire cloud crack, downpour, the People pouring blood. The Eagle’s white face and tail.
Read the rest of the poem here.
Christie Wyman at her nature filled blog, Wondering and Wandering is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup, along with offering a new line for the Progressive Poem–which is reeling in towards its finish… Thanks for hosting Christie!
Visit Renée LaTulippe’s site No Water River to find out more about what Poetry Friday is.
Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, & Writing 
Beautiful birds. I’m glad you find solace in your garden – I’m finding it in visiting with my Poetry Friday friends (as well as in my own garden and beach walks).
Oh, I so look forward to our Poetry Friday Community the poetry, stories, and camaraderie that flows here, thanks Sally!
Love that you had the visitors and “Spring ground becomes your stage,”. We have the time to watch carefully, don’t we? Thanks for sharing your time with the doves and the lovely art, too, Michelle. The poem by Balingit is so intriguing with the numbers!
Isn’t that interesting how she numbers her lines… the birds 🦅 help me stay centered, thanks Linda!
What beauty, Michelle. I love that mourning dove among the narcissus. At first, Brandywine Creek Preambles seems like a lark…but then, there is deeper meaning. I love it. Thanks for introducing it to me.
Thanks Linda, and yes Brandywine is a many layered poem.
Back yard visitors are so welcome these days! My parents especially love watching the nature documentary that plays outside their dining room window. Thanks so much, Michelle, for sharing your beautiful guests this week in art, poetry, and video.
Yes the birds are a wonderful distraction and keep so many occupied. Glad they are sharing time with your parents! My mom’s missing her mother owl and now full grown baby owl 🦉 since they’ve flown off. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your lovely daffodils and mourning dove. We’ve had a couple of pair nearby for the past month–I love to listen to their wings whistle.
I’ll have to listen for their wings, thanks for mentioning them Buffy!
Your art of the dove preening, the narcissus bending, and your poem is a perfect representation of your video! It was great to see and hear the video that inspired your words and art! I don’t get mourning doves in my backyard or garden. I forgot how I like their chirps, walk, and pink feet. My garden, my backyard, and local woodlands have been my retreat for nature, also. Thank you for giving me a time in your garden!
Thanks for visiting Gail!
Your poem casts a new light on these seemingly ordinary backyard visitors. I love the line: “Spring ground becomes your stage” especially when describing a bird who, by its very nature, is known for flight. Your watercolors are always spectacular. 🙂
Thanks Bridget, I welcome all of our regular feathered friends!
So sweet! Lovely art and poem that invites us to gaze in “awe.” Love the openness of that last line!
Thanks for sharing about your lovely spring visitors, Michelle. Haven’t seen any mourning doves for quite awhile; we used to have dozens of them join us on our open patio every afternoon when we used to feed the birds at our other house. Beautiful watercolor, too!
Thanks Jama! Sorry you haven’t seen mourning doves, I think their call is very calming.
Thank you for sharing the beauty from your garden in your words, photos and paintings. I am n awe of the dove’s beauty, too. And Balingit’s poem gives powerful voice to the creek. Even though this creek was in Delaware, reading it reminded me of the creeks and rivers in North Carolina (where I grew up) that flowed from the Appalachians through the Piedmont and Coastal Plain to the Atlantic
Love your art as well as the poem! The art and the video enhanced the whole experience. Thank you!
Beautiful painting and poem, Michelle. I love “nature beguiled pose” and “Spring ground becomes your stage.” Mourning doves are frequent visitors to my feeders. I love the fluttery sound of their departure.
Michelle, yourr illustration is so full of life and nature’s beauty. It is a great introduction to your poem. Like Molly , I do love love “nature beguiled post”.I wish I knew the names of the birds that fly on by. Very early in the morning, I woke to a chorus of bird sounds that were so soothing.
I get these in my yard, too. I often have that feeling too, that I’m one of the “selected few” paying attention! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Absorbing nature and deep looking brings me calm, and fills me up inside.