I'm not really here (because I'm there) but Titus has a Poetry Bus prompt this week and it made me write a little something. Titus' prompt is here and writing a response was quite a surprise because so far on our trip I've written mainly diary notes and travel blog stuff. I haven't even wanted to write poetry... or think about it hardly (though I have read a bit of Edna St. Vincent Millay and I've squabbled a bit with a book of Billy Collins...). My little Bus poem is right here:
Kingfisher
I keep looking for you in the wild
But it is a long hunt
And getting tougher all the time
I would see your flash of blue
Your jolly brightness
It might change everything
RF 2011
Photo above taken South Street, Philadelphia, 28.3.11
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24 comments:
Went to your travel blog ... just leaving a track here.
Sparse, keen dart of a poem - gorgeous snap of colour.
Something so timeless in this; it gave me a Gawain-poet feeling. Such a mood to just six lines.
This line,
'I would see your flash of blue'
like the fabulous hook the rest is fixed around.
Can I have it for the book? Can I? E-mail me if OK.
Welcome home(ish)!
Succinct and lovely, nice one Rambling Fox!
I@m the bloody bus again!! WHy does that keep happenin?! GRRRrrr!!
Ahh, that's better!
What a good poem!
The only time I've actually seen one is while swimming in the Swale behind my mate's house. When you're up to your chin in water animal life seems to ignore you.
There's an odd side to the rare bird thing: rare birds aren't rare where they live. We have loads of curlews in the fields round here. And if you frequent that stretch of river I mentioned you'll frequently see a kingfisher.
I'm glad you're here, as fleeting a visit as a Kingfisher. A gift flash
Nice to see you all... to see you nice.
x
I like the little hint of mystery at the end - it might change everything.
Ah yes, a "real" poem. :)
Nicely captured in so few words. Maybe one day when I grow up, I can do that. ;)
I really like this - and that last line is a kicker - does everything need changing? Or would that change not be a good thing? I often ponder the nature of change as I hope to win the lottery. Would that really help or hurt me? Hmmm.
Love flashes of blue! happy travels in this lovely country.
Oh you have really captured that feeling of waiting - not just for the kingfisher, but that sense of when you see it the effect on everything else. So real.
As always Rachel you impress me so much with what you fit into such a short poem. Excellent
Interesting you say 'mystery' Argent as I read this quote just recently on a HappenStance email, I think:
“ . . . . a real poem”, said Ruth Pitter in 1968, “however simple its immediate content, begins and ends in mystery.”
As for the getting a lot into a short poem business... someone did once suggest I do a whole book of shorties. Maybe they had a point. Maybe...
This poem does have a lot in it... for starters a day at New Lanark in Scotland a few years back when I tried and tried to see a kingfisher (but didn't). Also the first house we lived in in Scotland had a kingfisher on the door and h used to call it the 'birdie house'. It was a lovely house too - happy times there. Then there's just the whole 'always looking' business...
x
And having once seen a real live kingfisher at an unexpected moment, I agree- it changed everything. An ordinary day became magic...
Good to get some back-up on the theory!
x
A pleasing image ... 'flash of blue' ~~ 'jolly brightness' .. yes!
I get just the same "hit" from woodpeckers.
Beautiful thumbnail of a rare bird.
Oh, very nice! That last line is full of possibility—or is that too obvious an observation?
Before we moved in, we did see one near the pond across the road. I'm sure it will reappear by summer.
Kat
i really love it! (and i thought it was a love poem first!)
it has a japanese feeling about it, perhaps the masterful way in which you manage to condense the essential in a few lines, and a kind of detached objectivity in the description, even if it involves such intimate longing...
You say the nicest things.
x
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