Interpreting the Waggle Dance

 tree bumble bee

An old beekeeper told me
about the Waggle Dance -
the shaking and stepping moves
bees make to map out
where honey can be found.

dance longer - the honey is further
dance head up - fly towards the sun

The old beekeeper told me
different species of bees
can learn each others dances
but, he said
they're all getting tired

as each year they need to dance for longer.


An old poem originally posted in June 2008 for the Storytelling theme for the now defunct Read Write Poem. 

Reposted now as it was recently World Bee Day.

Find out more about the UK's bees at the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust

Meanwhile over on my Shapeshifting Green blog I've also reposted an old poem, you can read it here.  

I've illustrated the poem with a tree bumble bee as I don't have any good recent photos of honey bees, but bumble bees also do a form of waggle dance 

Nature Poetry Group on Read Write Poem

Some of you may know that Read Write Poem has now developed and expanded into a social networking site, complete with discussion forums and themed groups as well as regular prompts and articles. It looks great and promises to be a very exciting place for poets and poetry fans to meet online.

Due to popular demand, I've set up a Nature Poetry Group on Read Write Poem. You can have a look at it here. There are discussion threads to share your nature poetry, discuss eco-poetry and share your ideas for maintaining your connections with nature.

You can join Read Write Poem here - look forward to seeing you there.....

Spring

Suddenly
sound travels differently
blackbirdsong counterpoints
playground shouts

the air is gentler -
scarves become annoying
and winter coats are left at home

dead looking wood
buds, unfurling
architecture
of entire new worlds.





Spring for Read Write Poem

Spring is Sprung on Read Write Poem

The latest prompt over on read Write Poem is one of mine. If you want you can hop over and join in here.

.

organic fudge cake
dusted with icing sugar -
snow on ploughed fields

Food for Read Write Poem

I posted a senryu for this topic on Over Forty Shades here.

I've also got a haiku on a different topic over on Spring Haiku Daily, which you can read here.

Featured Poet and Lucky Bunny

Today you can read a wintry poem from me as part of me being the featured poet of the week over at One Night Stanzas.

Okay, since Sydney and Tyler's ears are twitching, I'll tell you that the lucky bunny who we are sponsoring is Driftwood! (Well done to Holly and Diana (sort of!) for guessing the correct bunny!) Driftwood is so adorable as he lollops around in the bunny enclosure at Gorgie City Farm. Not that the other bunnies aren't of course, they're all very sweet and well worth visiting or sponsoring. Apparently a new bunny will be arriving at the farm next month, a large black lop called Ebony, I'll try to get photos as soon as possible. And for those who may be confused, we're sponsoring Driftwood, paying money towards his upkeep at the farm, not bringing him home with us. Gorgie Farm staff have been advised to search my handbag when I leave work every day...

Oh and I wrote this week's prompt over on Read Write Poem, you can take part here if you want...

remote

in this wild land of sea lochans
every seal becomes a selkie
every horse becomes a kelpie
and the wail of the wind
a banshee cry.

Dialect for Read Write Poem

follow the coloured links to find out more!

a lochan is a small loch
a selkie is a name for a seal but (to me at least!) is more familiar as the name of the mythical seal folk
the kelpie is a supernatural water horse
the banshee is a wailing female spirit
You can read my earlier poem about selkies here

Check out the latest prompt at Read Write Poem

My latest prompt, on using dialect in poetry, is up at Read Write Poem. Why not take part? You can find out more here.

Of Monsters and Dinosaurs!

The latest Read Write Poem prompt, which I put together, is Of Monsters and Dinosaurs. Write poetry inspired by dinosaurs, other prehistoric creatures or monsters. Here's a haiku I wrote on the theme:

strange light
above the volcanoes -
pterodactyls swoop

If you have any poetry on the theme to share, remember to take part in Read Write Poem this week!

Bees' Knees

pollen
bright yellow
on the knees of the bees

the secret
powering
flower to fruit

golden harvest

the quiet
humming
at the heart

of our world


for Read Write Poem

Co-incidentally, Melissa, Poet with a Day Job had a poem about bees (and two others) published recently in this Joy and Ride, why not pop over and read them here, you'll be glad you did!

More Bees Knees here and here.

Crazy Bird Music

'autumn vibrates between nows like a crazy musical instrument' Yang Lian, Poem 5, Chapter 1, Concentric Circles

A bird of two songs is the robin,
this song the one of ice and frost
the sole sign of life
in a bare December hedgerow.

But today is still August
and as I trim our hedge
the brambles not yet even ripe
the robin's crazy mis-timed song

is the saddest music in the world.


for Read Write Poem

Yang Lian's collection Concentric Circles is a magical book of collage poetry containing vivid, memorable images in poems that shift meaning with each reading. I'll write a review of it here soon.

Of Renga, Renku and Haiku

Over on Read Write Poem, the latest post about poetic form focuses on renga and renku. It's interesting to read and it includes some of my haiku interspersed in it! Readers are asked to then help write a renku chain in the comments section - so why not go over and join in?

I've also had two haiku accepted to appear in Shamrock, the journal of the Irish Haiku Society, which i will link to as soon as they are published, and this haiku will appear on the breakfast menu of a B&B in the mountains of Idaho....

New prompt on Read Write Poem

My latest prompt on Read Write Poem went up today. The prompt is 'Being in the Moment' and it asks for poetry of any type in response to that idea, with a suggestion that haiku and tanka are particularly appropriate forms to use. Why not join in?

Rainy Scents

The scent of earth after rain
still takes me back

to the aftermath of storm
clean moist warmth

the pervading odours of rotten mangoes
with undertones of chicken dirt

washed away.

Here there are no mangoes
but as I walk under still dripping leaves

I smell lime flowers
before I see the lime trees.




smells for Read Write Poem

Sunburned

Hard to imagine from a rain drenched summer

the sunstroke migraine under sun blonded hair
crops wilting in the fields, cornstalks breaking brown
fish struggling in shallow waters
wildfires raging in tinder dry forests

while from my rainy city I dream
of gentle sunshine on my face.


The sun for Read Write Poem

haiku

dense woodland -
a feather floats down
a shaft of sunlight


Light for Read Write Poem

Reuse, Recycle and Revise 2

In preparation for the haiku workshop I facilitated on Saturday, I made some haiku bookmarks (using photos from magazines and my own haiku) for participants to take away with them. One of the first drafts of a haiku I wrote for a bookmark was:


softly weathering -
the faded colours of
abandoned boats.


But on re-reading it, I felt it would be improved by changing the first line:


glowing at sunset -
the faded colours of
abandoned boats.


I felt that the sunset adds a second element to the haiku and enhances the feeling of loss implicit in the second part. What do you think?



Reuse, Recycle and Revise for Read Write Poem

Reuse, Recycle and Revise

My latest prompt is now up at Read Write Poem - you can read it here. The basic idea is to take one of your poems and revise it, either to polish it or to totally rewrite it.

I like to revise my work, I like to feel that I end up with the best possible poem. However once a poem has been published, I feel that is it, and I rarely rework a poem that has already been published. With blogging prompts, such as those on Read Write Poem, we only have one week to put together a poem in response to the prompt, so effectively anything I post for these prompts is by definition, a first draft. However because it appears on my blog, I feel it is published, so I rarely rework any poem that has appeared here or on Over Forty Shades.

However, in the interests of responding to my own prompt, I reworked a recent haiku, taking on board the comment made by Bill of Haiku USA:

curtains
sway in the breeze -
birdsong.

You can read the original haiku here.

haiku

the fish eagle soars
above the still blue lake -
light fades to dusk.


This is my second poem for this week's Read Write Poem prompt which suggests using any form of poetry to rework another poem in another form. This haiku uses the six repeated words from yesterday's sestina to recreate part of the scene of that sestina.

Evening in Malawi

We used to watch the sunset on the lake
while drinking tea as daylight turned to dusk,
bougainvillea above our heads still
dancing pink against the darkening blue
and, flying fast against the fading light
returning to its tree - a fish eagle.

Each day the haunting calls of the eagle
echoed from shire to shore across the lake.
A heavy bird, in flight it seemed so light
as it hunted for fish from dawn to dusk
moving quickly against the sky of blue
and diving in the lake so clear and still.

As the big bird passed we would sit quite still
awestruck by the grace of the fish eagle.
Sometimes we would walk in the evening blue
to look for other birds around the lake -
the weaver birds displaying until dusk
their wingtips fluttering in the fading light.

Sometimes we would see the flickering lights
of fishing boats floating on the lake, still
and motionless in the gathering dusk,
competing for food with the fish eagle.
The fishermen shouted across the lake,
the football scores echoing in the blue.

Once I sat on the beach, feeling quite blue
and watched the fireflies glimmering with light
as they gathered by the side of the lake.
I began to feel so peaceful and still -
above my head the call of the eagle
heralded another gathering dusk.

I left the beach to get home before dusk,
saw a kingfisher with its flash of blue
(a much smaller bird than the fish eagle)
startlingly bright in the pale evening light -
the colour stayed in my mind's eye as still
I walked to my house with views of the lake.

I heard the eagle call above the lake-
in the blue evening the world felt so still
and in deepening dusk my heart became light.


Unleash the Poem Within recommends using the sestina to explore memory.
Read Write Poem this week asks us to play about with form, using one form to rewrite a poem that was originally in another form. This poem, my first attempt at a sestina, is sort of a reworking of After Sunset, Lake Malawi.