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  1. Sonnet to Fleeing Things

    “The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time;
    and the turtledove, and the crane, and the swallow,
    observe the time of their coming.” ~ Jeremiah 8:7

    Dear Life, every time I think I’ve caught up,
    there you go speeding by, waving as you pass.
    Why do I always have to be the one who has
    to snap the documentary photograph,
    spontaneous yet looking artfully composed
    thanks to those swans at the edge of the frame?
    Their necks crane north, their aim some
    obviously fairer mecca where, among hosts
    of other migratory souls— terns, pintails, rainbow bee-
    eaters and cedar waxwings— they’ll search out currents
    of warmer air to help them soar. Oh small intervals
    that mark these earth-bound cycles: in the mean-
    time I’ll turn my gaze to the late snow outside,
    speckled with shadow though eggshell white.

    ~ Luisa A. Igloria
    03 08 2011

    * With thanks to Ira Sukrungruang, whose Facebook status this morning also inspired the first two lines of this sonnet.


  2. Tundra

    As Spring begins to fill the cup of Summer
    and everyone else rejoices, I feel
    the longing and the loss of Winter,
    the craving
    for a truer North and
    a more lonely tundra
    where grooming swans bite their feathers
    and pools of meltwater sway
    the black strands of last year’s grass.



  4. This is what I wrote after my early morning walk around my yard:

    North Bound

    Echoes of distant trumpeting
    far above the early morning clouds.

    A snow white regatta of schoonering swans
    in a north bound return to the thawing tundra.

    Oh to be a swan and heading home!

    3/8/11

    When I read your Morning Porch just now at 5:15 pm I had to share my morning jottings with you. We live close enough geographically that this often happens and is why I look toward reading the Porch each morning, because I know you will be writing about something I just observed yesterday or will surely observe tomorrow, but this is the first time that our mornings met the same sights and sounds right on.


    1. Thanks for the fellowship! I’m glad to know my observations so often jibe with your own. And I love “schoonering.”


  5. Another flock of swans just after dark, calling here, here, here, here as they pass over the house. I can hear the swish of their wings, but I still can’t make them out. The crescent moon is surrounded by a small halo like a slice of melon on a plate.


  6. I’ve been scuffling about, thinking about Lenten discipline. I long ago forswore the “let’s give up watermelon!” silliness of childhood or the “let’s read the entire Bible through together with commentary” absurdity of too-serious-adulthood.

    Last year, I choose a song that contained a truth I needed to absorb and listened to it day in and day out, letting it permeate my spirit. So it was Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life”. I never told that to anyone who would have seen it as a problem and hence saved myself the need for discussion.

    But this year – a revelation, this very minute. (OK – three minutes ago) I have a little blog space over at Weather Underground where I often mirror my posts from The Task at Hand, or do some light nature writing. This year, I’m going to try the discipline of your morning porch.

    It’s a suddenly exciting prospect!


    1. Hey, cool. Wow, the Morning Porch beats Bon Jovi! :) I hope it proves to be a fruitful discipline for you.


  7. What is that sound of wings rushing over the roof tonight,
    what are those cries in the dark of here, here, here, here?

    I’ve mended the sleeves on these shirts by moonlight
    but for one; who knows when they’ll come again here?

    The window’s unlatched, the casements flung open.
    Oh that the moon’s collar of light would guide them here.

    When the years are a widening spell keeping loved
    ones apart, you’d know the wish to turn there to here.


        1. I know, and I can’t resist a bad joke. Sorry! I liked this one a lot. A very bluesy ghazal.


          1. Well then that’s what it should be called:
            Bluesy Ghazal with the Sound of Wings

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