Slice of Life: Poem for a Fairy Wren

Whew. I don’t know about you, but I needed a few days off after a marathon month of blogging. I’ve been writing every day, but am very relieved that the pressure of posting daily is over. But, because it’s National Poetry Month, I can’t rest for too long! There are so many exciting poetry projects going on around the Kidlitosphere, it might take me all month to read them all. (Visit the the lovely and gracious Jama Rattigan at Jama’s Alphabet Soup for links to all the festivities.)

In the meantime, I have a poem inspired Amy Ludwig Vanderwater’s “Writing the Rainbow” project. Sunday’s color of the day was lavender. Scrolling through Facebook that day, I found this photo:

via INature’s Facebook page (If you are the photographer, or know who is, please let me know so I can give proper credit.)

A friend assures me those feathers are blue, but I’m claiming poetic license and declaring them lavender. I’ve never seen such a sweet little bird, so I did some research to try and find out what species this is. In my searching, I found a purple-crowned fairy-wren, which is native to Australia. This bird doesn’t really fit a fairy-wren’s description, but when I read that name, I didn’t care. Poetic license strikes again. The details in the poem about the birds song, habitat, and diet are accurate for the purple-crowned fairy-wren. Thank you, Amy, for the inspiration!

The fairy wren
wears a purple crown
that complements
her lavender gown.

Her tail feathers
form a velvety train
that won’t be ruined
by wind or rain.

Flitting about creek-side
cane grass and shrubs
she feasts upon beetles,
spiders, and grubs.

Later, she and her love
will sing a duet,
a chick-chicka tune:
serenade for sunset.

© Catherine Flynn, 2017

Thank you, Laura, for once again being so generous with your time and talents.  Thank you also to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Melanie, Lisa and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories each Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.