Message to a Murrelet
Here is one of my own poems – the Scripp’s Murrelet chick dives in to the sea less than 24 hours after it has hatched, and having had no food at all. It is hatched fully-feathered and a third of the size of its parents – the murrelet has the largest egg to bird ratio in the world. The parents leave the cliff crevice nest and fly out to the sea, and call the chick, which plunges from the cliff into the surf and swims to meet its parents. It is the only seabird raised entirely at sea.
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Message To a Baby Murrelet
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Baby murrelet
how will you fare
in the wind and sun
on the ocean there,
.
leaving your nest
to jump in the surf
just two days after
your egg-hatched birth?
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I follow my parents,
they cry out to me
as they ride the swell
on the rising, green sea.
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How do your parents
guide you and guard,
when your world becomes
just water and dark?
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What do you do
in wind rush and storm,
tossing and plunging
when waves grow strong?
.
The ocean is where
I am at home,
wind in feather, air in bone,
part ocean, part foam.
.
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© Liz Brownlee
Image © Stonebird shown by Creative Commons License.
- Posted in: National Poetry Day ♦ National Poetry Day 2016 ♦ Poems ♦ Sustainability
- Tagged: Forward Arts Foundation, Message poems, murrelet, National Poetry Day, sustainability
lizbrownlee - poet 
Lovely poem, Liz. I’ve just been watching barnacle geese chicks dropping off cliffs and being guided into the water by their parents. Isn’t nature extraordinary?
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It is, I just can’t get my head around how they stay together in a storm, in the dark. It’s extraordinary.
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Beautiful poem, Liz. Thank you. And thank you for calling my attention to the Murrelet. You always come up with such awesome animals! 🙂
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Thank you, Christie!
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I love the cradly-rocking rhythm of this poem, Liz, though the thought of the mother bird producing an egg a third of her own size makes my eyes water!
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Thank you. I’m hoping she is suitably equipped, Liz!
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