Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘great white egret’

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
A quick video of an egret in flight on Bayou Teche, Louisiana.

What do you do with a perfect day? The temperature was just right, 70 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. Humidity low. Sunday is our day to catch up and get ready for the work week. We go to church and come home to our individual chores: cat litter, trash cans, lesson plans, laundry, grocery…and I had writing group. “You think we can squeeze in some paddle time?”

I decided that there were a few things I could put off like vacuuming, so I said a resounding, “Yes!” Perfect days are rare, so I feel we must embrace while we can. So we made a date for 4:00 PM. Jeff hosed out the canoe (ants), I grabbed the paddles, and off we went.

Heading directly into the sunset, the colors change. The old leaves on the oaks are a dark green while the new pollen fuzzies are a golden yellow. People complain about this popping of the pollen. It aggravates allergies and covers cars in a fine sprinkle of golden dust. All part of the healthy life cycle of a great live oak tree.

Pollen on the Grandmother Oak

Some, not all, of the cypress trees are showing new growth. These tiny needles are the brightest neons of green. The truest sign of spring.

cypress needles against blue sky

As we paddled home, Jeff noticed a plastic chair wedged in some tree roots across the bayou. He said, “I think that’s our lost chair.” A few storms ago, the water had risen and taken with it a plastic chair from our yard. Sure enough it was ours. Jeff managed to back the canoe next to it and grab it with his paddle. The chair was a little muddy but still in tact. I had to take a selfie to get a photo of it, so the angle and perspective are odd, but you get the idea.

Jeff rescued our long lost backyard chair.

We were home before the sun set and were treated to the appearance of a great white egret. Grace from God to praise this perfect day. Click on the video above to see this majestic bird in flight.

Great white egret

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Linda at Teacher Dance.

I’ve been exploring the blues poem form these last few weeks. My students and I read Finding Langston, so I pulled out some Langston Hughes poems. I grew up in Mississippi and something about the form feels like home to me. You can read more about blues poems here.

We’ve had a few hurricanes this year. Of course, the year 2020 is cursed as you know, but even for a curse, five hurricanes have threatened our state of Louisiana. Five! One of them, Delta, came pretty close to us here in bayou country. So with blues and hurricanes on my mind, I looked at this picture on my phone of a great white egret in the bayou a few days after Hurricane Delta. What do egrets do during a hurricane?

Bayou Teche, Great White Egret October 14, 2020

Egret Blues

It’s a tryin’ time to be a symbol of peace.
Tryin’ during this time to be peace,
full of a sad song in the air.
There’s a sad song swirling in the air.
Tropical winds just don’t care.

That hurricane down south in the gulf,
A storm makes peaceful turn to rough.
I’m walkin’ this line waitin’ for a sign,
a sign of weather’s high-pitched whine
I can’t keep from cryin’.

Egret blues echo in my Lord’s sunrise
Lord’s sunrise blurs my sideways eyes
I’m catchin’ the tailwind, ready to fly
Ready to fly through the bright new sky
A horizon of Peace by and by.

Margaret Simon, draft 2020

Read Full Post »