Today, a little avian appreciation. Bask in the blueness!
BLUE by Sidney Wade The great blue song of the earth is sung in all the best venues— treetop, marsh, desert, shore— and on this spring day in the wetlands where, under a late sun, we stand alone and in love with each other and the passing day we watch a cormorant whose eye is ringed in blue diamonds, a shimmering lure, and we love this blue and this dark bird and this deepening sky that pinks and hums in the west, and then the bird opens his beak and flutters his throat and the late afternoon light illuminates the inside tissue of his mouth which is as blue as his ocular jewelry, as blue as the bluest ocean, as blue as the sky in all its depth, as blue as the back of the small and determined beetle who struggles to roll his enormous dung ball in his own breeding bid to enchant another small blue miracle. ~ Copyright © 2016 by Sidney Wade. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, May 18, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
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This poem turned out to be the nicest surprise.
Wade actually had me at “the great blue song of the earth,” and as I read about her cormorant sighting, I grew more enamored of this dark feathered aquatic bird that reminds me of something prehistoric.
Did you know it has eyes “ringed in blue diamonds”? Or that the inside tissue of its mouth is also blue?
How wonderful of Mother Nature to delight us with these unexpected blue miracles! It’s like finding a cache of hidden treasure. 🙂
Of course I love Wade’s blue lyricism throughout (“as blue as the bluest ocean”), but best of all is how she exalts in discovery and wonder. Her love of the natural world is genuine and infectious.
About “Blue,” she says:
We were walking on a lovely evening at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, and I watched a nearby Double-crested Cormorant through my binoculars, admiring his double crests, for which he is named, and which one never sees outside of breeding season. At one point he opened his beak in order to thermo-regulate, and the evening light was slanted just enough to illuminate the inside of his mouth, which was blue!
So cool! 🙂
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Poet and translator Sidney Wade is professor emerita of creative writing at the University of Florida. She is the author of seven collections of poetry: Bird Book, Straits & Narrows, Stroke, Celestial Bodies, Empty Sleeves, Green, and From Istanbul/İstanbul’dan.
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The lovely and talented Robyn Hood Black is hosting the Roundup at Life on the Deckle Edge. Tap dance on over and check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this week. Happy Mother’s Day weekend!
*Copyright © 2023 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 
A beautiful poem, Jama – and some beautiful photos, too! Love that “great blue song” line, too. We see cormorants every now and then here, although it’s rare they travel too far from the coastline. Thanks for sharing!
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Glad you liked the poem, Matt!
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Appreciations for introducing me to Sydney Wade and her keenly perceptive and gorgeous cormorant poem! Those jeweled eyes and out-of-this-world blue mouth are wonderful! I once took many pics of a cormorant curled up on the side of a pier and am so filled up having these images to add to that happening, thanks for all Jama! 😊
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I’ve never seen a cormorant in person, so you are lucky, Michelle. I certainly never imagined them having blue mouths either!
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Wow, I’ve seen cormorants but now I need to see if I’ve missed that incredible blue that Sidney Wade has written about so beautifully! This is wonderful, Jama. Thank you!
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Those blue mouths and ocular jewelry really are something, aren’t they? Amazing the things you can learn by reading poetry. 🙂
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We see cormorants every so often, and I didn’t know any of this! Wow! And thank you for Wade’s Oliver-esque poem. Beautiful.
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I imagine you’d have to be able to get pretty close to them to notice their eyes and mouths.
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I had no idea about their eyes and mouths—wow! And such a nice poem celebrating blue.
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It had been awhile since I celebrated blue again, so this poem was a nice find.
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What a lovely and BLUEtiful post, Jama! Those eyes are incredible. Thank you for introducing me to this wonderful poet.
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This was the first poem I’d read from this poet, and I need to read more!
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Oh, my – it was time for sure for you to celebrate BLUE again. I think I know a fair bit about birds, but I also am delighted and surprised to learn about this blue mouth – thanks for the beautiful words of this poet and for the spectacular pics, too. (Thought of this post earlier when I took a break to walk around the Furman lake and saw a resident great blue heron, emphasis on great – it’s a very large one!) ;0)
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Wow, I love great blue herons; have only seen one in my life up close and that was years ago. They are majestic!
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Lovely poem! I saw many cormorants in Santa Cruz, CA recently but they were far away and I never appreciated their blue. Thanks for introducing me to this truly amazing poet!
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They’ve been keeping their blue mouths a secret all this time. 🙂
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Ahh…how I would love to revel in a blue cormorant’s eye jewelry, dazzling against the ripples of blue water. I must settle for my Stellar’s Jays.
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Nature is wondrous, is it not? Full of unexpected surprises. 🙂
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I did not know of the blue in a cormorant…blue diamonds…blue mouth…so cool! Thank you for the sweet and refreshing dip into blue.
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Blue is the color!! Thanks for taking a dip with us here. 🙂
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Wow. This poem has done what we hope for all of our poems — opened eyes a bit wider to the miracle and majesty, the diversity and whimsy of life. I recently finished re-reading PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK and Annie Dillard would have been all over this. I could quote a hundred lines from her chapter “Intricacy,” but I’ll settle for this: “Intricacy means that there is a fluted fringe to the something that exists against nothing, a fringe that rises and spreads, burgeoning in detail.”
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What a great line — haven’t read Dillard in years. Thanks for the reminder to check her out again.
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I’m here to give a shout out to the determined dung beetle–for me this poem is about the great eyecatching, obvious blues AND the inglorious smaller blue miracles we might miss. Thanks for this loveliness!
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Dung beetles everywhere are grateful to you!
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