Honk.

***

My magnolia tree is going mad!
what delicious blossoming:
on branches bare a month ago
this blush, first flush of Spring,
on limbs unburdened by their weight
not buds, but birds, burgeoning:
rose-pink breasted, moon-white crested
fledglings and doting pairs,
there’s no mistaking them:
instant families of galahs
noiselessly in celebration
of becoming and of being.
Much more than surprise
their blithe presence
is a kind of offering.
Brave community of innocents
in the shelter of each other
they cluster in their peace.
Nothing startles them or stains
their gentle rush to radiance.

Only vagrant winds soft and rough
ruffle their feathered joy,
enticing whispers of call
and restlessness so tender
flight seems imminent
and my need clear: keep watch
and catch the joy before it flies.
Yet all is hover and hold,
time and birds fold wings
and the only flight is fall:
magnolia moultings floating down
quilting garden bed and lawn;
and soon above on branches stirring,
noiseless as before appear new wings
leaf-bud green and more enduring.
But oh! that pink-white loveliness
before the green, that bloom of birds,
that brief but shared delirium.
The world and I need such madness

Magnolia Madness
Bet Briggs
***

I had a program this morning at Our Lady of Perpetual Disdain Catholic School in Cincinnati. The fourth graders were a great group of kids, very bright and well-behaved. But who rubbed me the wrong way was the teacher. During my talk, she turned her chair around, facing the opposite direction, typed rather loudly on her computer, got up and left a handful of times...If she had told me before I started my presentation that she would be working while I talked, I won't have cared. It was so distracting and rude. Hey, you teacher-types who read my blog...what do you think? Would you have done that if someone like me was speaking to your class? Am I being overly sensitive?

Late this afternoon, I grabbed the girls and headed off to the Cincinnati Nature Center. I have been telling the girls that we would be able to feed the turtles and fish after April 1st. We filled a baggie with pellets at the dispenser and sat there for about 30 minutes, slowly filling the winter-weary tummies of blue gill, other kinds of fish I don't know the name of, and two turtles.

A pair of Canada geese were interested in the food we were throwing to the water critters. The signs at the Center state you aren't supposed to feed the waterfowl, but I threw some food down the dock just so they would move farther away!

This is NOT zoomed in. I could have kissed his beak without leaning in.

Cute. Overly fecund, butt-biting, poop-making machines. But cute.

A quick video of just how much one of the geese wanted to stick close to us:

Click To Play

Hey, Birdchick! A disapproving TURTLE!

Holy Violet, Batman!

The magnolia is doing just peachy. Isabelle is so sweet and girly, just when I am not expecting it. She took a deep sniff of the flowers and said, "Mommy, they smell so SWEET!"

Purple skies over the Williams Manor tonight.