Fantasies make their own body heat;
warm air under their fluffed feathers
protects them from all kinds of weather,
and it’s a cosy place to tuck their beaks.
A build-up of fat under the epidermis
is like fantastic thermal underwear;
they can sit out long Antarctic winters
or soar above the Himalayas.
You might think that fantasies’ bare
legs and feet get cold, but no,
and, in hot weather, their warm blood flow
helps to keep them cool and aired.
A simple way for fantasies to escape
the weather is to flock together and migrate.
Kim M. Russell, 24th April 2021
Image by Shubham Shrivastava on Unsplash
My response to NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-Four, also linked to earthweal open link weekend
I’m still recovering from the surprise of being a featured participant alongside Graham Parker – it really is a happy Saturday!
Today’s challenge is to find a factual article about an animal that repeats the name of the animal a lot, then go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like ‘sadness’ or ‘my heart’, or something more concrete, like ‘the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking’. We should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which we can then rearrange and edit into a poem.
I turned to the RSPB bird guide and chose an article about how birds adapt to weather, which I wrote as a sonnet to celebrate Shakespeare’s birth/death day, which was yesterday.
writing in north norfolk 
I say let them fly free 😊
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I agree! 🙂
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Birds of a weather flock here and hither … where would we be without wings outfly the cold! I’m all for “fantastic thermal underwear,” but here in Florida is more those imagined pools where “Close to You” is on a nearby radio! Fun response. (PS, do you know how Sarah Connor is doing? She submitted a challenge for earthweal weeks ago and I haven’t heard since. She hasn’t been posting at her blog and I know her cancer had come back.)
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Thank you, Brendan. The last time I heard from Sarah was last week, when she emailed to say she was in hospital but did not know for how long. I’ve heard nothing since. I will try to contact her on Monday to see how she is and whether she is home yet.
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Thanks, I did hear from her yesterday, she is back from the hospital after a long stay due to some problem with a new medicine. She’s weak but home.
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Thanks Brendan. I got an email from her last night. I hope she gets her strength back soon.
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The perfect response to prompt, KR. I tried, failed, did something else altogether. But not you. You nailed it. congrats.
And kudos for the shout-out at the NaPo site…well-deserved. you’re the poets’ poet!
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Thank you, Ron!😊
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I love the idea of those fantasties flying over the Himalayas….mine do, too, quite often. I like the “cosy place to tuck their beaks” too. Smiles.
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😊
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Oh this is so good!
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Thanks Kim!
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