Quail Poetry

[HardlyQuailified]

Recently got an interest in collecting poetry about coturnix quails. I havent found much, but I thought it might be worth posting about here in case anyone has similar interests. All replies to this thread welcome, including poetry of your own! I'll update it if I find any more quail poetry, too.

野とならば If all becomes dense fields
うづらとなきて I will pass my years
年はへむ crying like a quail—
かりにだにやは for surely you will come
君がこざらむ if only for a few days’ hunt.

Source

 

[HardlyQuailified]

Chubby little sentinel,
Standing on the tree.
Watching o’er your chirping flock,
Scratching in the scree.

Oh, thou rounded sentinel,
Chief among the brood,
Your head bobbing worriedly,
As the covey gathers food.

Gentle feathered sentinel,
Almost time to move.
The hens and cocks peck on,
Topknots in a groove.

Chubby Little Sentinel, by Kevin Earl

 

[Susan Skylark]

There once was a quail
Who went for a sail
But soon got lost
On the waves was tossed
And all to get the mail!

 

[le_bwah]

Oh this is fun! Have a poem:

Eggs

They arrive mottled, blues and browns,
So like Easter candies, so like and unlike the
Stones you find at river’s edge in Autumn.
They come out warm, smooth with bloom,
Heavy with potential. Liquid seeds, they
Could germinate in the heat of your hand.

If you borrowed one from under a feathered
Breast, held it to a bright light, you’d see the
Heart, the dark spot of an eye, a length of gut.
For things yet to be born, they twist like
Acrobats, suspended in sunless heat by the
Tethers you fish out of your morning scramble.

 

[HardlyQuailified]

I've finally written one of my own

Lowe, the eve-borne quail song
Crow, and know it trails the dying sun
Hear it rise to greet the nightfall
Stitched between the crickets thrum
I know that strutting cockerel
Tastes it sweetly on his tongue
For the tune is rich with honey
And, merrily, his covey’s sprung

 

[le_bwah]

I wrote another one!

Hatch

She takes a feather from her breast,
weaves it, weft, through walls of dry grass.
Puffed up like a winter vest, she settles
Over her clutch, nestled in for the long haul.
No one had to tell her how to build her nest,
nor how to turn the eggs beneath her beak.

It takes her two weeks to form birds out of yolks.
One moment the chick is quiet, flush with the
Inner walls. The next, it rears against its first
Home with determination—life-or-death. The
Shell that sheltered has become an airless
Cell, but their struggling is proof of life.

When the outer walls give way at last, unzipped
By egg teeth and the will to become, mother calls
Her children—I'm here, I'm here—and warms them
Under gentle wing. Little chicks, wet with birth
And shaking, dry off in heaving heat and dark,
Closer still to mother's beating heart.