Poetry / Writing

News From the Natural World: To Build a Nest

Catherine Flynn24 Comments

Today’s poem was inspired by a recent article in the New York Times, “Why Birds Are the World’s Best Engineers,” a post from the National Audubon Society, “What Nesting Materials Are Safe for Birds?” and this nest, which my boys found in our yard many years ago:

To Build a Nest

When spring arrives
and days grow warm,
Mother robin knows
it’s time to build her nest.

Searching woods and
fallow fields, she scavenges
dried twigs and vines
to build her sturdy nest.

Slowly, slowly, surely,
she presses tangled
scraps and stalks
into a cozy nest.

She daubs the rim
and fills small gaps
with bits of goopy mud
to reinforce her nest.

Inside the cup, a woven whirl
of soft dry grass will
cushion cyan blue eggs
that soon will fill her nest.

Draft, © Catherine Flynn, 2020

Other “News From the Natural World” poems:

April 3: Apple Cake
April 2: Specimen
April 1: Forest Snail

Find links to more National Poetry Month Projects at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Also, you can follow the progress of the Progressive poem at the links below:

1 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at https://kaymcgriff.edublogs.org/
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan

24 thoughts on “News From the Natural World: To Build a Nest”

  1. Beautiful imagery, Catherine! I especially love the lines in the last stanza, “inside a cup, a woven whirl,” and “cushion cyan blue eggs.” Nice alliteration, consonance, and verb choice of “daubs.” Thank you for making see mother robin build her nest.

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  4. I’m just so amazed at that ‘swirl’ & how strong the nests are. I had a collection of nests that left at the school, but the robin’s seemed so strong. I love how your poem builds ‘bit by bit’ just like the robin builds.

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