Again it is with delight that I share with you another poem created in a spacious and elegant cottage flanked by the suburban forest. The gorgeous evergreens, deciduous trees and pines provide a welcome habitat for wildlife. Truly, nature is at its best as the eyes hold in awe the flora, and fauna doing what comes naturally throughout the four seasons of the year. The beauty of the environment like a banquet table placed before me. The feast truly sumptuous and wholesome did not cause a dent in my visa master card. Now isn’t that something to brag about!
The behaviour of the birds among the trees provides a natural theatre for the discerning eyes amid the ever changing weather patterns. The window view from where I sat provided the proper undercover to see the behaviour and shenanigans of squirrels, bees, butterflies and all sorts of birds which have made their homes in Ohio. This constant interaction of animals and birds in the wild is awesome.
It was from that vantage point that a bizarre scene played out between an American robin and a blue jay. The sky wore one of the many shades of blue that usually comes in the spring time when the day-star cascades its light with lustre. The drama unfolded when a robin was the first to take its position on a high bough of the tree which forms the back-drop of my bedroom window. A moment later, half second or so, another bird, the blue jay landed on the tree garlanded with ivy vines. A territorial war had broken out because the blue jay would have no other bird perching on the uppermost bough of the tree; that much I figured out from the blue jay’s body language. How dare you sit on that high bough, you arrogant robin! They fought and they fought; beaks crashing left, right, back, and centre. It was obvious that the blue jay would win the struggle because with each blow of its beak the robin fell to a lower bough on the tree. The territorial war ended with the defeated American robin having to accept its place on the lowest bough of the tree and there it remained as captured by my camera's lens; by the time I was ready for the next shot, the blue jay would have none of it; it flew away.
The behaviour patterns of these two birds caused me to think again for a moment. This reflection brought to the fore a perceived notion of how politicians behave during the race for the high office of the land. The blue jays are out in full array providing a formidable force for the adversarial stance of the robins. Hahaha! Yea, we can learn so much from the birds. The winner takes all. So it was only natural for me to write a poem about the blue jay that brought aviarium drama one early spring morning. The drama took place in April so the poem was also in recognition of “Poetry Month”. Now that’s what I called “killing two birds with one stone.” Please enjoy the poem not the “killing”. (I’m smiling).
Cyanocitta Cristata
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Crested, blue chattering bird; yes you are,
Keeping my company all winter long;
My other feathered friends have gone afar,
From the snow and icy winds howling strong;
Monogamously you mate ‘til you die
Great! if humans on this trait would partake
To stop the divorce rate which is sky high
Remember your marriage vows for God's sake.
From my Ohio home I see you perch
On the highest bough, there you take your place;
Cardinals and robins too, fear your birch
Your attacking skills show on pretty face.
Fearless as love my jay-bird cocks its crest
On the gray limb of a snow-flecked maple;
Blue, white and black bedeck its fancy dress
What shenanigans will you once more pull?
Casey chased you from her backyard feeder
She said you displayed a bad attitude
And that you are a corvid pilferer
Stealing and raiding with high latitude.
I think Casey was harsh, mean and unfair
For you only wanted to eat and play
Musical notes across the woodland air;
With fervent zest you do this night and day.
From dawn to dusk I hear my blue jay’s call
High in the forest trees it sings for me
Throughout the winter, spring, summer and fall
Its musical wheedle and tooloolee.
Cyanocitta cristata my true love
I shall miss your sweet notes your voice recalls,
And your gorgeous body floating above
With peculiar quirks, ruffles and falls;
I’m leaving Buckeye for the surf and sand,
It’s for a while but I must go away
To raise black-belly sheep on Maycock’s land;
Shall be back jay-jay on Thanks Giving Day.
© Paterika Hengreaves
April 24, 2007, Ohio, USA
The
Quatrain form is used in the creation of the poem, “Cyanocitta Cristata. This poem alludes us to the behaviour patterns of this beautiful song bird, the blue jay. The imagery of the poem brings to the fore the feelings of adoration and empathy portrayed by the persona. It is for these very reasons that the Quatrain was the preferred way to go. This is so because the Quatrain allows emotions to be expressed warmly in a short-story-like progression. The verses in this poem have a rhyme scheme of abab in the Iambic Pentameter verses. The Iambic Pentameter refers to a verse consisting of five iambic feet. This is among the most common metrical forms of English poetry. It consists of an unstressed and a stressed syllable. In the word, “attack” the first syllable is unstressed and the last syllable is stressed. Hence, it has one iamb so it measures one iambic foot. In order to structure a verse in standard Iambic Pentameter would require five iambs. A quatrain is made of four verses.
It must be noted, however, that instead of having standard Iambic Pentameter verses in this poem, variations are found in these Iambic Pentameter verses. As prosody would have it; it is not uncommon for this variation to occur in Iambic Pentameter verses, while maintaining the iambic as the dominant foot. However, convention allows that these variations must always contain only five feet. The second foot is almost always an iamb. The first foot is the one most likely to change by the use of the inversion technique. This is to counteract the metronomic effect by substituting for an iamb another type of foot whose stress is different. So it is not unusual to see any of these (trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapaest or pyrrhic) appearing in Iambic Pentameter verses. Most inversions tend, however, to fall on a trochee.
