Hallelujah Forest

I've been waiting for the music of this dark night,

warm on an evening in April

Spring peepers singing from dark, wet woods,

vernal pools alive

with the Rites of Spring

I stand in the darkness listening

as the chorus swells and fills the air

rising like a tide from the forest—

Handel's Hallelujah,

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy,

this is the music I hear

in this woodland cathedral,

rising from the vernal pools

with croaking voices singing,

and all the peepers peeping,

Majestic voices of

Amphibian Angels.

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 16, 2015)

NaPoWriMo 2015 / 30 Poems in 30 Days

A Shanty for a Prairie Sea

There is a different kind of sea

Where prairie grasses wave to me

And ripple over verdant plains

A place where I’m a child again.

(Chorus)

Let the wind blow, let the grass roll,

Let the birds sing over my grassy sea,

Vast sky above, I am in love

With this green and gold prairie grass sea!

Here in my sea of grass

The prairie flowers bloom at last

Refreshed by spring and summer rains

The prairie is renewed again.

Let the wind blow, let the grass roll,

Let the birds sing over my grassy sea,

Vast sky above, I am in love

With this green and gold prairie grass sea!

How the wind howls as skies grow dark,

Silencing the meadowlark

Clouds boil up in the sky over me

And pour down rain on my grassy sea.

Let the wind blow, let the grass roll,

Let the birds sing over my grassy sea,

Vast sky above, I am in love

With this green and gold prairie grass sea!

And when the prairie storm is done

The dark clouds part and there’s the sun

And arching over this grassy sea

A rainbow frames the world for me.

Let the wind blow, let the grass roll,

Let the birds sing over my grassy sea,

Vast sky above, I am in love

With this green and gold prairie grass sea!

~Kathie Adams Brown (April 3, 2013)

NaPoWriMoDay 3

The Mourning Dove's Song

In early morning, or late in the day

I hear the soft, mournful tones

from the lavender breast of a stone-colored dove.

It is a soothing song in this suburban landscape,

a reminder of wild things in wilder places

where I once lived and loved

and my heart roamed free.

It is a pleasant song calling me

Home.

~Kathie Adams Brown  (March 21, 2013)

The Song of the Say's Phoebe

I awoke to the song of a Say’s Phoebe

Calling me out to the dawn,

It pumped its tail while on the tall vent pipe,

It lifted its beak to the gray monsoon sky,

And as the sun broke through the wooly clouds

Suspended over the Rincon mountains

A single sunbeam reached out to caress

The soft gray breast of the bird who sang

with such a plaintive voice:

A plaintive voice,

--a  two-note sigh,

 I heard its longing

Fill the sky.

~Kathie Adams Brown (September 12, 2012)

Water Music

I can hear the music
the steady lullaby
of water in the night
slipping through the dark,
sliding down the roof,
falling to the ground.
My soul is thirsty
for this refreshing song
of water music--
a rainstorm in the night.

~Kathie Adams Brown (May 19, 2011)

Bobolink

In a sea of green waving grass you flutter
up in jubilant song
black feathers, yellow and white excitement,
with notes incomprehensible,
a melody that captures the heart and
raptures the soul
in one glorious exhibition,
one small bird
in a hay field
in spring.

~Kathie Adams Brown (May 20, 2011)


One Single Impression Prompt 168: Exhibition

The Silver Song of the Desert: OSI

The silver song of the desert,
from the black throat of a bird,
a sparrow sitting in sunlight
on an arid desert morn
perched near a cactus thorn
its melody floating around me,
its presence a mystery still,
this silvery voice in the desert
is calling me, calling me,
still.

~Kathiesbirds (June 22, 2008)

Prompt 17: Melody