Open the Door 2020, the digital writing festival with an environmental theme, was organised long before lockdow yet it couldn’t feel more pertinent.
Now, when most of us are staying at home and Spring is unfurling outside, we are experiencing a different relationship to our environment and, perhaps in some ways, feeling more mindful of what we can see and hear from our doorstep; the weeds growing in cracks in pavement concrete and the morning flurry of birdsong.
This is why we’d like to invite you to join us in writing a small poem inspired by birdsong: a Birdsong Haiku. Like birdsong, there is a deceptive simplicity to haikus. A haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry, which is typically written in three phrases of 5, 7, 5 syllables. Here is a selection of poem that were posted to Twitter durin the festival. Join in on Twitter at #BirdsongHaikus
—-
Irene Lavington @biscuitweevil
Artificial light
tricks the blackbird into song.
True tree-top magic.
—-
@rosiebans
Speckled branches sing
Green feathers ripple on trees
Flighty soloists
—
@emilyrIlett
I heard you today
Threading silver through the air
And I knew you, Wren
—-
@yirweeyin
Tweet of a bird
Tweet of a person
Both reach out
To the world outside
——-
@Amy_B_Moreno
Cheap feather jacket
Fastened with a yellow peg
Houses his proud song
Whispered sky visit
Dance and paint with their forked tails
The sunset silence
——
@LindaJCracknell
Thrush
This is mine, all this.
Got it? Get it. My patch. Mine.
Succinct? Me? Listen…
——
@ThurlbeckSarah
Blackbird alarm calls
like squeaky scissors cutting
lead me to the owl
Jenny Wren trills out
like typewriter keys tapping
then sings loud and proud
Woodpigeon cooing
“It’s alRIGHT TOtoro”
again and again
—-
@delia_ann
I read your bird songs
Tiny poems like pebbles
Smooth, soft, round, perfect.
—-
@DebiKirk
Puffins out at sea,
Little clowns of the ocean,
Bring a smile to me
—
By Mary
Robin trills his song
Flash of red to cheer the day
Year long friend to all
Cuckoo sounds of cheer
Harbinger of Springtime
Welcome merry call
by Mary (@WendyKirkGWL)
—
By Meg Macleod
chimney pot songster
blackbird’s gift to morning
bringing bright sunlight
—-
by Jo
Sing, bird, your spring song
Bursting through the drab grey day
A moment of joy
—
