Thursday, August 2, 2012

Rufous Fantail

Dinner's on the stove, there's cloud cover, wind whipping up, the hope of rain, and someone I love is hurting. It's been an odd, interrupted, lovely, loving day.

This is the rufous fantail, in a picture by Brett Donald. "Rufous" means red. I learned that by reading and submitting to Rufous City Review, "where industry encounters raw earth."  I have a poem called "Glimpse of Red" in the current issue.

One thing I love about being published is that I get to read everybody else's poems! I learn & feel so much. And, in this issue, I also love the center section of collage art!

Another thing I love about Rufous City Review, and what drew me to submit, was its list of what it contains: "rusted memories; russet sparrows; random whimsy; really great writing." A list (a longer list, of which this is a section) punctuated with semi-colons.* If you know me or have read my blog for a while, you know I love "random whimsy."

*If you know me, or my mom, or Ron Hardy, or the play Wit (aka W;t), or if you read Marilynne Robinson, you, too, might love semi-colons, or the fact that the Rufous City Review list is punctuated with them.

My poem not only has a glimpse of red in it, but also some rust.

This is the rufous-headed hornbill, aka the writhe-billed hornbill, aka "Dulungan," thanks to Callan Bentley. Remember the hornbill in The Lion King? "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with your food?"

Oops, better check the black beans and rice!

11 comments:

Maureen said...

Wonderful poem in a wonderful journal. Congrats!

Collagemama said...

Your poem recalls my mother's love of the slightly rusty brown thrashers in the jumbled underbrush up the backyard hill. Surprising and secretive, slender in cigarette skirts and dime store neck scarves.

Cathy said...

I get excited whenever I see a rufous-sided towhee. Semicolons are a cheap thrill too, especially when overused. I remember cackling gleefully (how else, right?) when I came across a page in a Mark Twain novel where a single sentence spouted forth fountains of clauses separated by semicolons.

Sandy Longhorn said...

Beautiful poem. "unpinioned by doubt" awesome!!!

Kathleen said...

Thanks, all, for your congrats and your own personal random whimsy!!

The black beans and rice survived, and so did the fresh red and yellow tomatoes added to them!

Molly said...

"the rude cage of bone, tent of flesh." !! Love it. Great poem, and congratulations.

Kathleen said...

Thank you!

Hannah Stephenson said...

Ah, congratulations on this! And good to learn of a new word (and publication).

Kathleen said...

Thank you, Hannah!

ron hardy said...

Love this poem Kathy, especially the images.

Kathleen said...

Thank you, Ron!