It’s cold and food is getting scarce. Many birds are moving restlessly around the neighborhood, feeding in groups. There are suddenly robins in abundance. Juncos too. I don’t know if any of the birds are headed south but some might become part of larger flocks that fly as far as Mexico to find more agreeable weather for the winter. They’re fun to watch but these cold days I do most of my watching through the windows.I wrote a poem about the birds this time of year for THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS, published in the 1990s’.
Bright-Eyed Good-byes
Birds
busily
tidying up
the season
Shouting
bright-eyed
good-byes
Joining
choosing sides
forming teams
Arguing
plans
Debating
from treetops
Everyone
talking
at once
Swirling
down
to the lawns
like black leaves
Pecking
for snacks
Gusting
skyward
Diving
wheeling
practicing
Days
of false
starts
Where
is the leader?
Who
is in charge?
When
was the signal?
I
missed the vote
same as always
They’re gone!
(c) 1998 David L Harrison, all rights reserved
Today I plan to add a few more paragraphs to my autobiography, a rather tedious work in progress with no end and no publisher yet in sight. Throughout my career I’ve published poems inspired by my own experiences growing up (we all do that), and on two previous occasions I’ve published collections of poems about various recollections. This one is in prose and includes much more about my life.
THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS was meant to share the musings of an introspective boy as he explored the world he lived in.
A Chip of Flint
See this?
Too thin
for an arrowhead.
Maybe a chip
from the weapon
being made
by a master craftsman,
flint in one hand
antler tip in the other,
strong wrists
fashioning
a new stone point.
Did he pause
in these woods
silent alone
or was he surrounded
by chuckling comrades
who winked at secrets
as flint chips fell?
It doesn't matter
the chip was rejected
by the arrowhead.
I accept it
as a gift
from an unknown hand.
~ (c) 1988 David L. Harrison
CONNECTING DOTS invited the reader to connect the dots of my memories to form a clearer picture of how my life was shaped to become who I am.
I’m 15. My collections now fill one room in our house. The years of field trips and chance discoveries are adding up.
THE COLLECTOR
Mothballs?
Yes, that’s what you smell –
over here in my insect case.
They keep the beetles
from eating my bugs.
That musty smell?
You must mean bird wings
pinned to the wall.
Stand back some,
they’re not so bad.
A few little smells don’t bother me.
They’re worth the price
of actually owning a rattlesnake skin,
a crow’s nest,
a red fox hide I tanned myself.
I touch my treasures,
their fragrances perfume my room.
Their stories live again,
their memories sweeter.~ (c) 2004 David L. Harrison
So now I'm returning for a third time to the river of my life. I started the project a couple of years ago, imagining it as a play, but I decided that not even close friends and family could willingly sit through such drudgery. In the end I started over and am writing it as a sequence of moments and incidents that seem to me to have contributed to the making of a man who turned out to be a literacy advocate and writer of books and poems for young people. The journey has been long. I promise to make the book shorter.
You’ve seen this poem before. THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS was published in 1998 by Boyds Mills Press in. It is the story of a butterfly collector with a problem. It was based on me and the butterfly I wanted was a blue hair streak.
Yesterday I watered the plants outdoors and got my sandals wet. When I sat down to rest, this blue hair streak landed on a sandal to get a little bit of moisture on a hot afternoon. It brought back memories of that day when I was 12 and standing in a pasture before a smelly cow pie, net over my shoulder, horn rim glasses sliding down my sweaty nose, wondering how to swoop up the jewels.
Cow Pie Jewels
Plop
in the middle of the path
a cow patty
bigger than a dinner plate
Smelly pie
sizzling
with blowfly raisins
Melting in the sun
How can your charm
these butterflies
these dainty jewels
in sky-blue tights
to dance around
such disgusting pastry?
My net at the ready
I stand
pondering how
to swoop up the jewels
And leave the pie.
(c) 1998 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved
Here’s another poem to help celebrate the month. This one appeared originally in THE PURHASE OF SMALL SECRETS and was written with SANDY’S dad, RALPH KENNON, in mind. He was an avid gardener who loved to see his family enjoying the results of his labors. The growing season is approaching and one of these days gardens large and small all over America will once again produce their treasures to grace tables of those who toil in the earth and those lucky recipients of their efforts.
I keep thinking of previous dirt poems I’ve published over the years. Here’s one that appeared in THE PURCHASE OF SMALL SECRETS, a Wordsong book by Boyds Mills Press in 1998.
A HOLE IN THE GROUND
What creature
tilled the grass
to tunnel here?
A hole in the ground
always makes me wonder.
Is this one empty,
choked with dirt
that trickles through the roof
and rattles down abandoned halls?
Or is something there,
heart pounding,
sniffing me
down in the dark?
A hole in the ground
always makes me wonder.
(c) 1998 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved
Meryl, who has illustrated as many books as I've written, was asked for a cover design to meet the catalog deadline. I don't think she'd seen the manuscript yet because when I saw it, I loved the picture but pointed out to my editor that the cover showed a girl and I was a boy. After some quick tweaking, the cover character turned into a boy. But waste not, want not. The original cover character, altered just enough, appeared on the last page of the finished book.
Children's Author David L. Harrison's Blog 