To Tell About Tu-Tu Birds

Just a silly poem I wrote that focuses on the sounds of words

To Tell About Tu-Tu Birds

By: Kathryn Oakland

 

Tu-Tu birds bang down on their cocoa drums.

Golden talons tapping the primordial rhythms,

Which were sung to them as lullabies in cradled nests.

The little ones still longing for their first touch of sky

Use the lacy ferns as hushed tambourines.

The elders, with their rumpled down feathers,

Nod their crowed heads and hummed low and deep in their throats.

The tangerine and marmalade colored males tango amongst the trees,

Twirling in and out of branches, only pausing to wink at their twitterpated lovers.

The female’s plumes puff up like popcorn and their coiled eyes look away.

Each and every heart of each and every Tu-Tu bird rises and falls with the cocoa drums

As it has been from the beginning,

So will be their end.