Hope is the Song of Birds
It's National Poetry Month: A Poetry Month Challenge
Oh, April.
Oh, Poetry.
Oh, Hope.
Oh, Birdsong.
Sometimes the world just collides with serendipity. This morning was one of those mornings as the rain stopped long enough for me to go for an outdoor run. It is spring, but the promise of an outdoor run is still not cemented in the daily weather forecast where I live. Everything is greener now so the world has a new brightness that doesn’t require sunshine, yet I was lucky enough to get a small window of blue sky and bright sun. Because it’s National Poetry Month, I decided as I ran that I should turn off my podcasts and just listen to the morning silence for a while. If I’m going to attempt a poem a day, I must drop some of the noise I let into my life. Interestingly, it wasn’t silence I found when I took my AirPods out, it was the song of birds.
As I thought about a month of deep poetry study and required poetry writing, I couldn’t help but connect the hope I felt with the song of the morning birds. Just a month ago, my morning runs were silent. As the birds sang this morning, I realized I had forgotten that silence only happens in winter. It is time to leave the silence behind and follow the hope of the birdsong. I’ve decided this space will be a part of this month’s challenge - and the hope of a successful challenge month.
I first posted on Substack in January of this year. I wasn’t sure if I would be back or how I might use this space. I’ve always lived an “in progress” life and poetry is certainly something I love, but something I have always been “in progress” about. For this year’s National Poetry Month challenge, I have decided to spend the month in the study of “The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics,” edited by Diane Lockward. The book is essentially 30 craft lessons so I hope to read a new craft lesson each day and then use the lesson to write a poem each day. Each of the poems will be posted on my writing blog, Merely Day by Day. I will use this space to share my reflections on the month of poetry.
My current plan is to share with readers who stop by my Substack page:
A short summary of the day’s craft lesson from The Practicing Poet.
The Rabbit Hole: the random thoughts and places I end up as a result of the lesson.
A link to the day’s poem.
Here we go.
Oh, Birdsong.
Oh, Hope.
Oh, Poetry.
Oh, April.