Each week I receive an email with writing prompts from Poets & Writers The Time is Now. A few weeks ago this was the prompt for poetry.
Several years ago, New York Public Library staff discovered a box filled with file cards of written questions submitted to librarians from the 1940s to 1980s, many of which have been collected in the book Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A Little Book of Whimsy and Wisdom From the Files of the New York Public Library (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2019). Questions include: “What does it mean when you’re being chased by an elephant?” and “Can you give me the name of a book that dramatizes bedbugs?” and “What time does a bluebird sing?” Write a poem inspired by one of these curiously strange questions. Does your poem provide a practical answer, or avoid one altogether leading instead to more imaginative questions?
The Time is Now, Oct. 29, 2019
I used the question “What time does a bluebird sing?” to inspire a poem.
What Time Does a Bluebird Sing?
Morning is filled with birdsong.
If it’s not yet sunrise, I hear the owl whoot.
If the sun’s up and there’s an electric pole nearby,
it’s the woodpecker—drumming, not singing,
but musical all the same.Echoing through the breeze
sings Papa cardinal
and soon the mockingbird joins in
with a trill up the scales.Where is the bluebird?
Margaret Simon, draft 2019
Hiding in a grove of trees near the swamp,
shyly tweeting,
a flash of blue
the color of sky,
song of morning.
Reflections on the Teche 
Lovely. I could hear them and it made me long for Spring. Connie
Ack! I never got to your draft before today….but this is beautiful. I love the phrase ” musical all the same” and the question, “where is the bluebird?” I feel like I am with the poet discovering the sounds at the same time. Wonderful!
I saw this prompt too….it’s still in my files waiting. Isn’t it funny how some prompts will grab one of us and not another?
What fascinating questions and a lovely poem in response. Our birdsong is quieting down as the mornings as colder. The chorus is not as loud as it was in summer. I love those last three lines
In our area the cardinals are holding out. Alas some of my favorites are gone.
Those questions are wonderful prompts, and thus, you’ve written a wonderful poem, Margaret. those are birds i grew up with & some do not come as far west as Colorado. I love the ‘blue’ of bluebirds, and yours, ‘shyly tweeting’.
The prompt is so much fun and I love what you came up with! I miss being able to have a bird feeder and watching the birds in the morning.
What a beautiful bird. I like this phrase: shyly tweeting,
What a great prompt! That avian chorus you capture here is such a delight!
Lovely! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Thanks for this reminder of spring. The best thing about this time of year is being able to see all the nests in the trees and knowing those birds will return.