Tag: nature poems

Songbird Dreams

A bird in the privet
suddenly sings
and without evidence of prey
I can only surmise
that she is dreaming.
It’s a morning for dreaming,
crisp-cold and clear,
the moon and Jupiter still dance
while constellations shimmer
to the rhythm
and she is singing in her sleep,
a sweet but startled sound
as if she feels our spinning,
senses the sun’s fast approach
wishes for one more hour
of peace before the day begins.

Tags autumn poems, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry

Creativity Poetry

In This, The World

Two sparrows
on the center line
one insistent,
one in crisis.
I turn around
to offer assistance
knowing it is already too late.

This world is cruel and merciless.

One has left, one remains
staring at the sky;
I lift her with words
used for loved ones,
feel her spirit leave
as I lie her in the grass.

A million heartbreaks
in her final wingbeats,
a million tears
I don’t dare shed.

This world is cruel and merciless.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, Poem, Poems, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry, writing in 2025

Creativity Poetry

The Least I Could Do

What you do for the least of these…

God whispers from a corner

of the forest where I walk,

and there, beneath my feet

a convocation of earthworms

crossing the path,

etching their prayers in dirt

…you did for me

so I lift them gently

one at a time

to the safe green haven

trailside

thinking…

how simple this task

how easy to take care

of those under foot

how bending down

to lift others up

is a sacred act,

a blessing

in this wicked, wicked world.

Tags Anthropocene, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, Poem, Poems, poems about the anthropecene, poems in 2025, Poetry, Sleeping with Ghosts, writing in 2025

Creativity Poetry

21-Mid-April Morning

The morning
thick with sound
spring sound
a humid hovering
of birdsong
and flowersong
buds on trees
whispering
and soft soil
separated
by anxious green
almost ready
for the ministry
of bees
and butterflies
soon to be
tending
and tittering
a symphony
of what is
this moment
and what will be
at any moment
soon.

Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Anthropocene, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poem, Poems, poems about nature, poems about spring, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

19-Oh Poop!

pathetic
pedestrians
perambulate,
place
pups’
poop
packets
permanently,
propped
presumptuously
pathside,
preserved
perpetually

Poem ©2025 Jen Payne. For more on this topic, order your copy of “There’s No Such Thing as the Poop Fairy” today! NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Anthropocene, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poem, Poems, poems about nature, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

3-Surely there is magic about

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date April 3, 2025
No Comments on 3-Surely there is magic about

Somewhere in the ebb (of the work day)
and flow (of the springtime woods)
a page turned and laid itself gently
across the path like a vignette filter
on this enchanting afternoon
and there beneath my feet…

A single spotted wintergreen rises up from the ground…Spotted wintergreens are the flowers that grow from longing.

The sun has warmed the alcove of cedar,
so I sit for a while to consider the flowers,
the swan, the osprey, the character
who calls to me from across the pond
who? who?

He turns and stops, his head tilted towards the ground. He stands there for several seconds, staring at the spotted wintergreen…

Am I dreaming?

Then he carefully pushes his hands into the soil next to it and a cardinal flower punches through the surface…Cardinal flowers grow from frustration.

Perhaps dreaming or remembering?
Surely there is magic about,
even the Owl agrees
watching now from above,
as I sigh and adjust and…

Kneel beside the cardinal flower and touch the Earth, a purple cone flower rises to greet me.…the perfect flower for apologies.

We add to our conversation, wildflowers taking over the dirt…and so much spotted wintergreen, longing everywhere…

We see each other. I think we always have.

How long did I sleep?
I don’t recall.
Time stood still
there by the pond
beneath the trees
that whispered and sang
and soothed us —
the Owl and I —
for a moment
or hours or maybe
perhaps a lifetime.

A new flower punctuates the end of our conversation – a single iris to say he loves me.

With all thanks to Rachel Griffin and The Nature of Witches, this found poem ©2025, Jen Payne. NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poem, Poems, poems about magic, poems about spring, Poetry, Writing

Creativity Poetry

2-One Day in Spring

Trout lilies appear

A shadow crosses my path
and I am at once
only that over which
the heron has flown —
of no other
consequence —
with only a regiment
of lilies to bear witness
how small am I
to his eye?
I wonder as I step
across a stream
apologizing
to the startled
swans
and bowing
to the osprey
watching
warily;
there’s a blush
in the tree tops
and across
my humbled face
the all of us
in awe of this
magnificent spring day.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, poems about spring, Poetry

Creativity

Old Great Blue

From the bough under which the catbird mourns
I gathered a bushel of wild grapes
so that together — your Memory and I — could make sweet wine
to share with the family of swans who remember

outstretched wings, your solo flights across the pond

the kingfisher who cheered
green heron
and osprey
and chickadee
the turtles and frogs and snakes
and songsters all

remember you, old friend

We’ll drink our wine by your weathered white bones
narrate again your prehistoric startle from this cove
the seemingly impossible lift and soar
your meditative poses and postures

And I?
I will tell them of the winter we walked step-for-step by the back pond
how the world was silent and we listened to snowfall
the sharp haunted joy of us and no others

that moment last spring — the shock of morning wing song
watching as you landed on a branch crown-high, balancing on its sway
how every time I looked up,
you were still there
and still there
and still there

until you were no longer

I have pages now of poems for you
stories to tell to the gathering
and one last prayer
these fall flowers at your feet
beneath a birch that once was as well
with gratitude forever more

Amen

Photo & poem ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry

Creativity

Oh Yeah!

It’s OK that you drank the Kool-Aid, love.

You needed something
to get you through these last long years,
and the booze just wasn’t cutting it,
we both knew that.

So god it is…

I just wish it was a gentler god,
not an angry one, or judgmental,
not one locked in a house built on dogma
reeking of sins and incense.

I don’t know…if it was me,
I’d want to get to know the god who made the woods
and all its weird and wild creatures,

the one who filled up the ocean and dropped in
whales and welks and narwals,

the one who paints rainbows across the sky
and doesn’t care who takes offense.

I’d want to find a god to suture old wounds
and tug at the threads of trauma
that keep some of us from a fully woven life…

Kool-Aid comes in all flavors, darling
but I prefer mine good and sweet, oh yeah!

Tags art, Books, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, Photography, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry, Travel, Writing

Creativity

Fall Morning

The air smells of wild grapes and skunk
but I don’t dare walk to the curb
to see if the devil has taken another one,
my heart is already broken so much
the weight of its bits and pieces
is pain now living in my bones —
so I ignore all of that
and stand barefoot in the damp grass
soothe the catbird worrying
with a tick tick tick of tongue
I learned from my grandfather
who loved birds enough to sing to them
but not much else, I don’t think
except maybe whiskey
— and guns —
the devil comes in all forms, doesn’t he?
angry men and scared men,
men with a throttle between their legs
so blind with power they don’t slow down
to spare the skunk, her mouthful of sweet grapes,
the joyous morning that could have been.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, life with ghosts, nature poems, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Hollow

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 16, 2024
No Comments on Hollow

In the earthy space
where he and his crown have fallen
lies a sacred place
of rain-brushed roots,
rough, rocky undersoil,
soft green moss and
a small dry hollow in which
one might curl up
wait out the storm
dream of that first root
extended deep into the
damp and loamy sod
its acorn nut split
wide open, screaming
cap askew, laboring
before a symphony release
of tendrils here and there
here and there
excuse me please
this place where it all began
I touch the underside
stroke my hand across time
one hundred
two hundred
his rings indecipherable
how many years
and storms
and creatures like me
tucked in for solace
and safekeeping
can you leave me here please
and leave me be
to watch the dark clouds
gather and pass?

Poem & Photo ©2024 Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Anthropocene, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, Poetry, poets, Three Chairs Publishing

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Next Generation

They will no more notice
the loss of the White Pine Way
than they will the spidery web
of atlas lines
that told you how to get
from here to there.
That sacred knowledge —
our finger touch of distance and time,
the intuitive knowing of how —
as foreign as the waypoint Oak
that stood mid-path,
its forked trunk noting
this way to loop back home or
that way, the path less traveled
that way, where the white pines whispered welcome,
and the weathered veins of the world let go
just long enough for you to hear your breath
and muted footsteps on the soft ground,
where you could disappear
into shade and shadow
and silence…
before the storm
the shearing off of what
we thought we knew for sure,
the deception of always
and certain revealed now
against the stark blue sky.

Tags Anthropocene, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, Poetry, poets, Three Chairs Publishing

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Pay No Mind

The carpenter bee

pays little regard

to the clamor

of dogs barking

and boys splashing,

intent on its

discoveries

here

and here

here

and here

no matter the rain

that approaches

on tip toe

across the pond,

no matter the

strange woman watching

from the bridge above

Poem ©2024 Jen Payne. Photo of Baloo and Shere Khan, two of the beloved trio BLT (Baloo, Shere Khan, and Leo) from the Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary. Click here for the story. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, poems about bees, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

10 – Tribute

There was no time
for gratitude
or remembrance

how the bees
loved her in spring,
the blossoms
full of promise

how the Robins
sought refuge in her
abundant branches,
suffered storms
raised families

no time hold
the memory
of her sweet fruit,
consider
its ripeness
one last time

to thank her for
summer shade,
the filigree
of shadows,
the soft
unexpected breezes

nor even to
regard the lichen
and velvety moss
that gathered
in her neglect,
embraced her
unpruned limbs

One hopes
the axman
soothed her,
that the
Jays and Doves
were nearby
comfort

Poem ©2024, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, poems about nature, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

9 – Old(ish) Woman Walking

It’s a snake and turtle day at the pond
66° and everything seems enchanted

suddenly!

except my winter hips
which long for the agile ease
of the black racer

except my worried brain
that envies the tranquil turtle
and its sunshine meditations

but my ears still hear
know the garter under leaves
understand the ire of the wren
the wingbeats of the heron

my heart still marvels at the
osprey’s enthusiasm
to sing love songs
for yet another season

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, poems about aging, poems about nature, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

5 – If someone walked into your heart what would they see?

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date April 5, 2024
No Comments on 5 – If someone walked into your heart what would they see?

Or: When a Writing Prompt Takes You to a Battleground

The poet’s
skin soft from age
(perfumed in
Calvados perhaps)
knows the pulse
of waves
beneath her
feels how they
beat within, too
remembers well
the stories
and great heroics
of trust
and love
walks now
a gravely path
to an expanse
of cratered lawn
where ghosts
commune
in whispers
and tears are
only memory
reflected in
the morning rain
where sharp wires
— a final kindness —
keep her safe
from another fall.

Poem ©2024, Jen Payne, recollecting a trip to Pointe du Hoc. Photo: Pointe du Hoc, courtesy of the World War II Foundation. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Haiku, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

4 – Witching Hour

Folklore says
the witching hour
arrives between
midnight and four,
but I beg to differ

I will tell you
with no uncertainty
that the devil appears
sometime between
7 and 9
as regular as the sun
in a wild cacophony
of sounds and alerts

hoof beats and
tire beats
engines roaring
bass thumping

Pavlovian dings
for here! no there!
over there!
and here!

Cursed notifications
and incoming calls
and speech bubbles
that

pop! pop! pop!
bang! bang! bang!

Headlines
and Bylines
and Subject Lines

It’s mischief
and madness
and mechanisms
seeping through
the heavens of morning
that only
the most wicked
could fashion

Poem ©2024, Jen Payne. IMAGE: Wikicommons. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Haiku, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

3 – Rain: A Haiku

some will say the rain

come again some other day —

not spring buds (or me)

Poem ©2024, Jen Payne. IMAGE: 1933, Kawarazaki Kodo, woodcut tulips. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Haiku, Jen Payne, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, nature poems, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

They Called it a Microburst, But I Know Better

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date January 5, 2024
1 Comment on They Called it a Microburst, But I Know Better

Across town, the sky was falling.
While I settled in
for the long, windy night,
he laid beneath fallen trees —
a trauma compounded.

Everywhere, things were breaking —
foundations and forests —
and I wonder sometimes
if that was the moment
we broke as well.

The moment
all the cracks and shakes
finally finally
split us apart.

These days,
in the forest where we
first and often met,
I can see our ruins —
mark the day of our beginning,
the warped rings of memory.
and in the wreckage of canopy,
our final silent fall.

Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift. .

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, memoir poems, nature poems, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Sunday Drive

I try to tell from the walk,
the shadow, the stature,
the bow in the legs

is it him?

wonder what we would say
after all this time

I should hate him,
put the painful slides
at the front of the reel

instead I pull out the happy ones,
shine a light on what surfaces
of those feelings long ago,
of all that seemed possible

and even though I know better
now
I slow down

stare and stare and stare

consider the recognition
mine and his
a weird and inappropriate reunion
in a parking lot at Christmas,
Solstice Bells on the CD in my car
and he smiles
like he still owns me
joyful and cruel
all at once

so I speed up
before our paths even cross.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, memoir poems, nature poems, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Inroads

The deer path
has been excavated
from its intimate
trail of mossy secrets
to a course hewn
five feet wide
accommodating us, of course,
but not the slow poetry
of listening
here, where the
January thaws laid bare
a Caretaker’s House
like Brigadoon, brief
or here, where in the
sunrise silence
one could hear
the Lady Ferns
unfurl in fanfare
nor here, where
small Spring Beauties
gathered in gossip beneath
the wise old Oak
who bears witness now
only to the wreckage,
the red blaze nailed deep
without apology.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, poems about nature, poems about the anthropecene, Poetry

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

Interstate Epitaph

There but for the
grace of god,
I whisper as a prayer
in fast passing
for the pigeon
who lies writhing
by the overpass,
its fatal injury
too much to bear
for either of us,
so I imagine the wings
that catch its
final breaths of sunlight
are those of angels
sent to comfort
its frightened spirit,
stroke its soft body
and hush the pain
in the flash of a second
I could not.

IMAGE: Study of Mice Dancing, Beatrix Potter. Poem @2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, Poetry, poets

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

A Mouse Tale

It’s hard not to wonder
if mice get post-traumatic
the stress of
recall repeat remember
the night
she levitated
formed circles
scaled stairs (twice)
ran and ran and ran
hid and hid and hid
found herself
in the most unlikely
predicaments:

cat’s mouth
cat’s paw
gloved hand
and then…

then…
that wide expanse of lawn
lit by the moon
and streetlight

I left her there at 2
it seemed the safest place
despite the trauma
or because of it?

In daylight, will I find her
there still…
still in the grass
just a ghost in the walls?

I don’t dare look.

Tags being a better human, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, Poetry, poets

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

How I’ll Glow Up

As I grow older,
I want to make myself
a better person

I want to put down my ego —
my self ego
and my human ego —
and see the world
with wide wonder
and compassion

I want to stop taking sides,
stop needing a defense
or a logo or a standard,
let go of my attachments,
my fear, my uncertainty,
wear my age loosely

I want to open my heart,
let love in
in big, scary ways
so I am full up

so instead of dying
maybe I just burst
like the jewelweed flowers
that explode with seeds
along the trail

seeds of love
and curiosity
seeds of magic
and dreams

seeds left to flower
in the oneness
when I am gone

This is a response poem because yes, some products are made in China, but so are Pandas and Snow Leopards, so grow up. Photo by Terry W. Johnson, Georgia Wildlife Resources Division. Poem @2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif

Tags being a better human, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, make love not war, nature poems, poems about enlightenment, Poetry, poets

Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

The Shy Ones’ Hour

I sit on a Noble bench in the woods
it’s barely 7 — the shy ones’ hour
we come early to this place
the humming bird at the apple bough
the rabbit among her clover
the timid turtle poking its head from the pond
to see who and what is about
so I respond with a whisper
We’re safe to float in Eden a little longer
as two herons fly overhead
and it’s so quiet we hear wings beat,
heartbeats even
this morning before the fray.

Photo: a bench along a trail in Branford dedicated to naturalist and birder Noble S. Proctor, Ph.D., who amassed a lifelong birding list of over 6,000 species worldwide and wrote numerous books on birds and wildlife. It carved wth Proctor’s quote: Always something to see. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Jen Payne, nature poems

Poetry

Mea Culpa

I apologize to the birds

for being late

for arriving to the feeder

after the snow begins

assure them not to worry

there’s an endless supply

I say out loud

while I note “birdseed”

on a pad by the door……..again.

Tags CT poems, Jen Payne, nature poems, Poetry

Nature Poetry Writing

Sanderlings

Perhaps it is the same flock,
the one I met years ago,
the one that startled me
here on this shore
that very first walk,
when every rock and curve,
every wind and wave
was unfamiliar still.

Perhaps it knows me now,
this flock of small fidgety birds,
always nervous or impatient,
quickened by anticipation of
the next wave, skittering
to the beat of their sharp trills,
quickly quickly ahead
never near enough for hello again.

Until this morning when I,
in keen focus on a resting shell,
became for a moment
likewise and warmed by the sun,
looked up to find myself surrounded,
heart quickened and nervous
that one false move would startle them,
their gathering at my feet.

Poem and Photo ©2020, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, then you’ll love WAITING OUT THE STORM, a collection of my poems about Cape Cod. Click here to buy the book now.

Tags books about Cape Cod, CT Poet, Jen Payne, Nature, nature poems, poems about Cape Cod, poems about mindfulness, writing in a pandemic

Creativity Nature Poetry

29 – Getting Out

I’m in the woods.
Grandgirl says
as she steps her
wee self off the trail
and into the leaves
then gallops
ahead to chase
the butterfly
see the meadow
I’m in the woods!

he says, too,
as Nephew leaps
from the inside
breathes the outside
and careens
down a path
in front of us
climbing rocks
light saber at the ready
running
running
running

I’m in the woods!

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. For Max and Lia. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Tags #NaPoWriMo, getting outside in a pandemic, kids and nature, nature poems, pandemic poetry, Poetry, poets, Writing

Poem ©2021, Jen Payne. Photo by Chiot’s Run.

Poem and Photo ©2020, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, then you’ll love WAITING OUT THE STORM, a collection of my poems about Cape Cod. Click here to buy the book now.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. For Max and Lia. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.