For the first day of National Poetry Writing Month, a catch up poem that I intended to write during my Lent observance with birds.  The Common Loon in breeding plumage is far from common, the checkered black and white pattern sets off its red blazing eyes.  If it only squawked it would still be fabulous, but instead it has that ethereal and haunting trill that echoes across lakes, that feels like a passageway opening to another world.

Croon harlequin
then dive deep
to your underworld

Silently surface
glide low – proud,
bill pointed at stars

Loon-nar melody
hanging notes
drift on like the fog

© Laurel Archer