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The Spring Has Come

The mating call of the black-capped chickadee
(a North American songbird) sounds like “Hey, Sweetie!”

“Hey, Sweetie!”—this is what you say.
Small chickadee, it is your way
to signal interest in your mate.
You sing and chase—and often wait—
until she deigns to make your day.

A furtive “cheep,” and friends will stay
well hidden from a bird of prey.
When skies are clear, your life is great:
___“Hey, Sweetie!”

Though studies now are underway,
the birders feel, with sharp dismay,
that what they’ve learned has little weight,
for all their efforts to translate
resulted in just one cliché:
___“Hey, Sweetie!”

.

.

Nature’s Paradox

So many people feel a peace of mind
when resting near a forest, stream, or hill,
for, lying there at ease, they can unwind,
with senses bathed in sounds and thoughts now still.

We cannot find another place like this:
a place where all the creatures harmonize,
a place in which the mind is filled with bliss,
a place that people would immortalize.

But then a voice arises from the past.
It says that nature’s “red in tooth and claw.”
The bliss that’s felt in nature cannot last.
Consuming others is a basic law.

The harmony is there, and then it’s gone.
Perhaps we see just what we focus on.

.

.

Remember This

—from my childhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Our yard contained a group of trees—
the perfect place to skin my knees
when I was still a growing boy,
when I could climb and still enjoy
the out-of-doors in early May,
and I had put my books away.

An oak tree held a brownish box,
a birdhouse made with wooden blocks.
The open door was just the size
for smaller birds to claim the prize.
The empty house was there for free,
and soon a sprightly chickadee
had claimed the box as her own house,
and with her mate, her helpful spouse,
she wove a grassy nest up there.
They carried fibers through the air
until there was a nest inside,
where future fledglings could abide
until they’d grown enough to fly
into the endless azure sky.

I climbed a nearby tree before
the fledglings dared to leave the door.
The parent birds were bringing food
to fill their quickly-growing brood.
The partners sang a cheerful song
of gladness as they flew along.
So glad were they to be alive,
they didn’t worry, stress, or strive.
Though working hard, they still knew how
to live within the joy of now.
They didn’t think about the past
or wonder if their joy would last.

Contagious was their joy to be,
and what they felt soon came to me.
As I began to feel their bliss,
a thought arose: Remember this!

.

.

Alan Steinle, originally from Oklahoma, is a writer, editor, and translator. You can find many of his Spanish translations here.

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18 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    These poems are compelling nature poetry with impactful visions that stir the soul. I had relatives living in Tulsa, the Coburns, and remember enjoying the environs there as a teen when we would stop there. Your grasp of the lives of birds is beautifully on display in the first and last ones. All three poems brought me peaceful thoughts and have my admiration.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      Thank you. I value peace, and if my poems had that effect on someone, maybe I should keep writing.

      Tom Coburn was a senator from Oklahoma. Are your relatives related to him?

      Reply
  2. fred schueler

    In bishops Mills, Ontario, we hear the first Chickadee ‘feebee’ (=’sweetie’) calls around the winter solstice, though they are a lot more frequent now.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      Good to hear. I think a lot of people like the relatively tame chickadees. I miss seeing cardinals where I live now.

      Reply
  3. Yael

    I enjoyed reading these sweet nature poems. Each one is fun to contemplate at it’s own scale. Starting with birds at 8 beats or syllables per line, then zooming out to a general view of people in nature and expanding to 10 beats per line, then zooming into the past of the poet himself in nature, and back to only 8 beats per line but with more than twice as many lines as the first two. It’s a nice romp through space and time, with a consistent focus on nature observation.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      I’m glad you enjoyed them. Usually, the beats in a line refer to the stressed syllables, so an 8-syllable line in iambic tetrameter would normally have 4 beats, and iambic pentameter would normally have 5 beats.

      Reply
      • Yael

        Great to know, thank you for explaining this technical detail; I had no idea that this is how beats are counted in a poem.

  4. Cheryl A Corey

    “to live within the joy of now” is indeed something to remember.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      Yes it is. Now is the only time we can do or feel anything. Our wandering minds often forget that. Birds are probably better at enjoying the moment than are most humans.

      Reply
  6. Margaret Coats

    Alan, you are absolutely right about “Nature’s Paradox.” It’s not that observers go away with what they brought; rather, some are able to experience abundance, while others depart simply self-satisfied.

    “The Spring Has Come” deserves a place among my additions to “The Poetry of Birds.” You may already know of this British book that catalogues the best bird poems in English by species. It does include some kinds of birds that live only outside Britain. Your rondeau makes excellent use of form, too; a double prize-winner! And “Remember This” would fit into the bird anthology’s category of “Day Out” poems, also increasing the book’s proportion of good formal verse.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      I hadn’t heard of that book before. Do you have a favorite poem in it? My grandmother was an avid bird watcher and traveled just to see new types of birds. I’m more of a backyard nature enthusiast.

      Reply
  7. Paul A. Freeman

    Once I got WC Fields out of my mind, I enjoyed your ‘chickadee’ rondeau. Alan. I particularly liked the humour in the middle stanza.

    I also liked the message in Nature’s Paradox. It got me thinking about how we dress nature up and look at it through rose-tinted glasses while the fox is hunting the rabbit, and the spider’s trapping the fly.

    Alas, WC Fields returned in Remember This, but I worked my way through it. I loved this last poem. It’s so jaunty and positive, where similar poems would have become maudlin. The last line is almost a twist considering the reader is expecting the narrator to be looking back in sadness, but is actually looking forward, with a positive life memory. I hope that makes sense.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      Thanks for telling me how the last poem seemed to have a twist. When I wrote the poem, I had the ending in mind from the beginning, so it seems pretty straightforward to me. It is interesting to hear other people’s reactions.

      Some people idealize nature, while others just think of it as a wild and inhospitable place. I pity those who have never had any good experiences in nature.

      Reply
  8. Alan Steinle

    In my opinion, “The Spring Has Come” goes well with my poems “The Night Has Come” and “Nature’s Paradox.” The first two are a sort of yin-yang of birds. Or yang-yin, since yang is associated with the sun and light and yin is associated with the moon and night.

    Perhaps all human observations of nature are mediated by our individual mental outlooks, so we see our own emotions and thoughts (of joy, fear, light, darkness, etc.) looking back at us in nature. Thus, it is hard not to anthropomorphize nature. To be completely objective about nature, on the other hand, is to get even farther from nature, in my opinion, because it treats living things as objects or merely factually.

    Here is the yin poem that didn’t make the editorial cut. If I’m not allowed to add it here, someone can delete it.

    The Night Has Come

    The night has come, and I must fight
    to waken in the fading light.
    The sun, that tyrant of the day,
    has given half the world away
    unto the moon, now full and white.

    The glare is gone, to my delight,
    and now all things are in my sight.
    My time is brief—I can’t delay.
    The night has come.

    Nocturnal birds do not unite
    when hunger strikes and food is slight.
    When I discover hidden prey,
    I dive to earth—a lightning ray—
    and stun it with a crushing bite.
    The night has come.

    Reply
  9. Russel Winick

    Alan – I enjoyed all three of your poems, and in particular felt that the last line of “Remember This” was quite stunning and moving.

    Reply

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