Assault on a Dove

A flock of birds swoop down the road

in the face of a churning, tireless blow

skittering the ditch, they flutter and spin

to stay in sync with their fine-boned friends.

Pellets of snow fly in opposing drift

unlike these birds who would flock together

if only they could. They circle the house looking for calm,

break apart and converge in the shape of a crown.

One lone dove drops from the sky
like a plumb line to my porch and hops chair to a chair

butter soft gray, dusting snow off her feet,

she rests on a cushion out of the wind

and tucks her head neatly under her wing.

For Sherry Marr  at EARTHWEAL, poetry for a changing world.

Rising temperatures have a major influence on wind speeds. This has been especially noticeable here in the Great Lakes Basin. According to a study published in the scientific journal Natural Climate Change, winds across much of North America, Europe, and Asia have grown faster since 2010, and the speeding-up trend is expected to continue. That's good news for renewable energy production and could be a boon for the wind power industry but brings an added risk to birds. 

Researchers estimate that up to 328,000 birds are killed every year in collisions with the blades and support towers. But back to the affect high winds in general have on birds. The ability to land is critical, especially for fast-flying birds. High wind is an assault and particularly dangerous to cliff-breeding birds. It can prevent them from accessing their nests through loss of flight control.

Wind trumps fossil fuels, hands down, but solar trumps wind. No creature likes windy days, least of all birds.

The Wildling Sea

    

   

Red flooding alert

along the coast,
again

but as with what befell

the boy who cried wolf,

we drink our coffee

and read the funnies

as the dune grass clinging

to the eroding slope—

the barrier between house

and the wildling sea—

gives way.



This poem is in response to Earthweal's weekly challenge for the "Global Commonwealth of Earth" and the theme of water. And d'Verse 's Wild Mondays  Even since I first wrote this, part of M-25 along the Lake Huron shoreline is in danger of falling into the lake due to unrelenting rain and gale force winds.

Why You Should Submit to the Slippery Elm Literary Journal

The Slippery Elm Literary Journal is committed to promoting the best fiction, poetry, and multi-media being created today. Literary and artistic merit is the sole criterion for all work included.

Click here for ten reasons why you should submit your best work to this journal.

Submissions are open until February 1st.

Child's Play

The pictures on the staircase rearranged themselves in the night

           or so she thinks.

The carvings in the wooden beams that support the entry to this old house

are mathematical in design and impossible to sand

            or so it seems.

My ears sing and I go to the woods to hear the crow and found a skull

and a rack and remember that which was upturned in the garden

and thrown into the ditch, but they keep coming back, like playful ghosts,

            or so I fear.

First it was her great-grandmother’s portrait

moved from top to bottom. Each night another moved

until the last morning the wall was empty.

            No one sees what she can see.

The dog barks, and the moon turns red, an eye of blood,

the camera flash, a migraine, a socket at the keyhole.

           The dreamwheel in my head.

My family pictures don’t rearrange themselves. I hang them where

I want them and they stay put. If a hook come up empty,

dust coating the wall behind where something hung,

            it was on someone else’s stair.

I retain the brass chalice my father used as an ashtray for his cigars

and saved the butt of one half-smoked.The wrapper crumbles in the bowl
but the blackened tip is soft from his lip 

            or so it seems. 

The boy runs for help with ash in his hair, a rattling in his pockets.

Fire smoldering undetected beneath the surface of the peatlands

broke free in his excavating.

            A tooth in his pocket. 
On the final night of the wolf moon her ancestors were piled against the wall

at the bottom of the stairs.

            I dreamed I was her and saw them there.

This is posted for Brendan's challenge at Earthweal, the new platform for discussion of climate challenges. The ghosts of what was, what might have been and what might yet be. Comments and suggestions are welcomed!