Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2020!  30 days of poetry.  Congratulations to my traveling companions through this journey who stuck with all of this.   They tell me it’s really something to write 30 days of poems.  I wouldn’t know.  It’s just something that I do that is as natural to me as having a meal.  Which isn’t to say that I’m that great of a cook or poet.  But, that I do keep on saying my something to the universe and hoping it touches someone’s heart and soul.

Today’s optional prompt is “to write a poem about something that returns“.  I live in a place that is along the Mississippi Flyway.   When I first moved here I learned this was the migratory path for many beautiful birds.  Among these is a flock of Sandhill Cranes that is accompanied by the last remnants of a particular type of Whooping Crane.  Due to custody battles, one of my dreams has not always been fulfilled but it still remains to make visiting these birds a family tradition for my princesses even as they grow up in front of me into the most amazing young ladies.

On An Ancient Pathway
by Michael Doyle

Twice yearly for over 2.5 million years
Sandhill Cranes come in all their unison calling
Right as clockwork they somehow adhere
Be it springtime or with Autumn's leaves falling

Red foreheads, white cheeks and dark, point bills
Fly overhead in their ragged formations of gray
Since nearly birth, my daughters have had the thrills
Of taking the drive up to Jasper Pulaski for the day

Them bundled up as warmly as they can be in Fall
Or, running about playing when it comes each Spring
It this father's hope that they will always recall
All the joy and laughter that this always brings

Watching these with somewhat misplaced human pride
As these glide in to feed on these semi-sacred grounds
Watching as they catch the thermals taking their glide
There is something magical there and quite profound

It seems savage to know these are the ribeye of the sky
When some hunter told me this, I had to look away
Otherwise, they might have caught the tears in my eyes
And my silent prayer that they would always be a day

When some father somewhere took his children for a ride
To see the soaring birds plumaged in their best gray
And quietly teach them the ways of nature with familial pride
That others before had been along in this same way

On the way back home, we get dinner at the Whistle Stop
It's a pilgrimage of sorts that I hope will never end
For the good food and friends made at the Whistle Stop
And the memories of thousands of cranes as these descend

(c) April 30, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved