National Poetry Month 2014

I love the month of April. Tiny green sprouts are emerging from dark brown soil. Even on the coldest mornings you can feel the slight shift in the sun's heat rays. And the birds are beginning to chirp matins for early risers like me. Most of all it is National Poetry Month. Each year I set myself a poetry challenge to write a poem a day based on a particular form or topic. This year's poems will be about nature.

One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver who literally finds a world in a grain of sand, or stalk of wheat, or the calm eyes of a deer. The nature pictures she paints with her words are amazing. It is that description of nature, and its metaphor for universal life forces, that I hope to emulate with my poems this month. Since the hawk is one of my favorites of Mother Nature's children this is where I shall begin.

The infant hawk lifts her wings for the first time. The sun catches the fragile white down on her chest and it glints like silver against the deep-sea blue of dawn.

angel wings
beckon promises
this new day

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