Poetry Friday: My world, your world, our world, and Roundup

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I'm happy to be hosting you from Kampala, Uganda. Today I am using the November SJT (Spiritual Journey Thursday) prompt. SJT is supposed to be the first Thursday of the month; I am therefore over two weeks late in responding. This month's prompt came from Linda Mitchell and it was "My world, your world, our world." I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing it for my hosting gig. Share your world with us by leaving your link in the comments. I'm on East African Time, and it may take me a minute to get to the rounding up part, but I'll do it (the old-fashioned way) as fast as I can. I have comment moderation enabled, so you won't see your comment immediately. And finally, I have had quite a few complaints lately that people aren't able to comment. I apologize in advance if that happens to you. If you have my email address (I know that many Poetry Friday friends do), you can email me and I'll put up your link.

We all live in the same world, right? No, we really don't. Even if we are from a similar background and live on the same street, the way we experience our daily life may be completely different. And if we live in different countries, or have different pasts, or different immigration status, or even if I slept well last night and you were up with a screaming baby, we may have almost no commonalities between us. This can cause problems. We may find it hard to relate to people whose worlds hardly overlap with our own. People in the US got a reminder earlier this month of how different our worlds are, as voters on both sides wondered: how could half of the country think in a way so diametrically opposed to the way I do?

 

But being from different worlds can also be a source of great richness and beauty. One of the reasons I love reading a good novel is that it can draw me into the world of a character who isn't like me. It takes me out of my own head and helps me see in a new way. And in our relationships, we can share our worlds with others. My husband and I grew up in two different countries. Throughout our long marriage, we have shared elements of the cultures that informed our upbringing, as well as sharing the worlds where we've lived together (like Haiti, whose horrendous suffering we continue to watch, but from a distance now). Many years ago, I got to visit the country where he lived as a child. And at the beginning of this month, he finally got to visit mine. I took the photo at my childhood school in Kenya. I'm so thankful to have it as one of the places I love, and I'm so thankful that I've spent time on five continents, and seen many of the worlds on our great big planet.

 

My world, your world, our world

There’s just one spot on this earth
That saw the moment of my birth.
But I love so many places,
Take joy in so many faces.
My favorite? Don’t make me choose.
There isn’t one I want to lose.
The sky looks down from way up there
On my worlds, your worlds, ours to share.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey
 

Reading Update

Book #61 of the year was Amor Towles' short story collection Table for Two. I like his novels better, but there were some enjoyable stories here.

Book #62 was The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah. I was fascinated by the portrayal of what it's like to live in rural Alaska.

Book #63 was The Identicals, by Elin Hilderbrand, a story of twins living on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Book #64 was Family Family by Laurie Frankel. An author's note says that Frankel wrote this to demonstrate that adoption isn't a second choice or something you settle for, but a beautiful way to make a family. I am paraphrasing because my library copy has disappeared off my Kindle already. I found this book very entertaining.

Book #65 was The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley. This was a time travel story in which I thought I knew exactly what was going on, until suddenly everything changed and I had to reevaluate everything. I love it when an author pulls that off. 

Book #66 was Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. I enjoyed this one a lot, too -- it asked interesting questions about nature and nurture.

Book #67 was Prince Across the Water, by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. This was a historical novel about the events around the Battle of Culloden in Scotland. It was written for children, but I found it held my attention all the way through.

Book #68 was a re-read, Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor. I've blogged about it a lot before, including here.

Book #69 was Sandwich, by Catherine Newman. I find myself gravitating these days to books about people with adult children (I wonder why), and this was one such book. It was absorbing and thought-provoking.

Book #70 was One True Loves, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The love of Emma's life disappears, and she finally moves on and gets engaged to someone else; then her first husband reappears. (This happens in the first chapter, so it isn't a spoiler.) What should Emma do?

Book #71 was The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods. I read this with my book club because one of us found it at a library sale for $1. We didn't enjoy it much, though our conversations about it were still great fun.

Book #72 was Rock Paper Scissors, by Alice Feeney. This wasn't at all my kind of book, being a suspenseful story where people are all lying to each other. I did like how the author pulled a twist I didn't see coming.

Poetry Friday: Birdtober 2024

Here are links to all the Birdtober poems I wrote in October. It was fun! I hope to do it again next year!

 

Day 1: Plush-crested Jay

Day 2: American Robin

Day 3: Mountain Bluebird

Day 4: Giant Kingfisher 

Day 5: Eastern Plantain-Eater 

Day 6: Red-winged Blackbird 

Day 7: Cardinals 

Day 8: Black-headed Heron 

Day 9: Gray Crowned-Crane 

Day 10: Speckled Mousebird

Day 11: Golden Swallow

Day 12: Red-billed Firefinch

Day 13: House Wren 

Day 14: White-necked Crow

Day 15: Red-headed Woodpecker

Day 16: Red-eyed Dove

Day 17: Rüppell's Starling

Day 18: House Sparrow

Day 19: Pink-backed Pelican

Day 20: Abyssinian Ground-Hornbill 

Day 21: Vervain Hummingbird

Day 22: Green Jay 

Day 23: Painted Bunting

Day 24: American Goldfinch

Day 25: Cedar Waxwing 

Day 26: Red-tailed Hawk 

Day 27: Striped Kingfisher 

Day 28: Mosque Swallow 

Day 29: Roseate Spoonbill 

Day 30: African Green-Pigeon 

Day 31: African Wood-Owl 

 

 

Patricia has today's roundup. 

Birdtober Day Thirty-One: African Wood-Owl

Day 31. I could write about a Burrowing Owl, which I've seen and loved, but I decided instead to write about the owl in my own yard here in Kampala. I mostly hear this species, but I've also seen it, in the Botanical Garden in Entebbe. 

Photo Source: eBird.com

Awake, 2 AM

Hoots menacing, comforting

You're awake too, owl

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Birdtober Day Thirty: African Green-Pigeon

I love green birds. There's something so tropical about them. I haven't seen this species in a while, but I really enjoy them.  In the past I've seen them at school more than once. Listen to their sounds in the video below. (Bonus: there's also a Red-eyed Dove calling, starting halfway through the video; you can read about those sounds here.)

Photo Source: eBird.com

 

African Green-Pigeon

 

You are cute beyond belief;
Green, but noisier than a leaf.
Bluish eye and purple wing,
And that growly, cackly way you sing! 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

One more day of Birdtober! See you tomorrow! 

Birdtober Day Twenty-Nine: Roseate Spoonbill

 Photo Source: eBird.com

Roseate Spoonbill

Bird of cotton candy pink.
bending down to get a drink,
using your bill like tongs in salad
and singing your weird, croaky ballad:
Milliners once sought your feathers,
but now your birdy get-togethers
are safe and calm; you may seek fish,
mollusks, crustaceans, what you wish.
You won’t be made into a hat,
and we can all be glad of that.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Birdtober Day Twenty-Eight: Mosque Swallow

I had really hoped to see a Mosque Swallow during our recent trip to Lake Mburo because it was one of the likely birds listed. Unfortunately, I did not see one. 

 

 A page from Birds of East Africa

I found this poem called "Masjid/Mosque," by Urdu poet Akhtar ul Iman. There's a swallow in the poem: 

Or a swallow, at the approach of winter,

Seeks the mosque out for making its nest;

And curling up for hours in the broken arch

Tells the story of cold countries.

The mosque in this poem is abandoned, and no longer used for worship. That fits with the Mosque Swallow, which, according to what I've read, prefers abandoned buildings if it chooses to nest in a building. It also likes hollow trees, particularly baobab trees. But the swallow in the poem can't be a Mosque Swallow, because they don't migrate from cold countries, though they sometimes move around based on where it is raining. I am starting to think, after mostly unsuccessfully hunting for references to swallows in mosques, that the name comes from an attempt to place these swallows geographically, since they are found in Africa and Asia, often in areas where mosques would be frequent. Swallows in general do have a reputation for nesting around humans, hence the name Barn Swallow. There's a reference in Psalm 84 to a swallow nesting in the temple: "Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young - a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you" (Psalm 84:3-4).

Mosque Swallow

The swallow
has found
a home
in the abandoned
mosque.
She swoops
and
soars
to catch
termites,
makes
a chewed
clump of bugs
for her babies,
waiting for her
in their nest
of mud.
Blessed,
blessed
is she.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Birdtober Day Twenty-Seven: Striped Kingfisher

Today's calendar says "Artist's Choice," meaning that I have to choose what bird to write about. There are so many I could have picked. I decided I wanted to write about one of the lifers (birds seen for the first time) I've had this month. We have a week off in October, and my husband and I went to Lake Mburo, in Western Uganda. There are many species in that part of the country that we don't have here, and during that trip I got fifteen lifers. They were all exciting, but I decided to write about the Striped Kingfisher. On the 4th I told you that I had seen nine different kingfisher species (in three countries). While at Lake Mburo I saw my tenth! It was the Striped Kingfisher.

Photo Source: eBird.com

Striped Kingfisher
Halcyon chelicuti


Halcyon bird
of blue and brown,
my Kingfisher species
number ten:
welcome to my list
of treasures.
Outsiders found you in 1814
in Chelicut, Ethiopia,
but you’d been around long before.
They added you to their list
of treasures.
I found you in 2024,
when the guide pointed up at you
where you watched, impassive,
from your tree.
I know you don’t care,
but I sure enjoyed
seeing and hearing you,
Striped Kingfisher.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Here are the ten kingfisher species on my life list:

 

Belted Kingfisher - US

Ringed Kingfisher - Paraguay

Amazon Kingfisher - Paraguay

Green Kingfisher - Paraguay

Pied Kingfisher - Uganda

Woodland Kingfisher - Uganda

Malachite Kingfisher - Uganda

African Pygmy Kingfisher - Uganda

Giant Kingfisher - Uganda

Striped Kingfisher - Uganda