This is not a poem. It is a hidden-word puzzle. Hidden are 30 birds, all found in the Rocky Mountains of North America, with one exception.
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I invited Clark King, fisherman extraordinaire and my best friend, to go fishing with me at Silkestre Lake, and he said he could, but he had to bring his little sister, Annette, along because his parents were gone. I craned my head to one side so he couldn't see a flicker of my scowl, but I agreed. I must have been loony, because that girl did nothing but talk, and when she wasn't talking she was making other sounds. I heard her coo twice and snort at least a dozen. I'm not an ogre, believe me, but at times I wanted to snip every hair off her head and… oh, never mind.
She talked about going to the mall, ardent in her love of shopping, while absentmindedly toying with her shoelace, aglet missing. I just shook my head when she asked, 'Can a peanut hatch into an oak tree? ' She tried to warble right along with other avian creatures, and babbled about how she liked to jaywalk at the school instead of using the crosswalk.
She told about an African animal called an okapi; pity we didn't have them here, I heard her rave, never stopping, until some mule deer fawns wandering on the nearby shore distracted her. Now she wondered aloud why anyone would ever want to kill deer.
She said that the pig, eons ago, had evolved into the hippopotamus. Hippos prey upon smaller animals and even eat them, she claimed.
'Why can't we see the big dipper? ' she asked. 'Because it isn't nighttime.' her brother told her.
Suddenly miss King let out a yelp, because a large fish had taken her bait and wrenched her only pole right out of her hands, and we all saw it disappear into the deep waters.
She was disconsolate, and we had no choice but to pack up and leave. She groused about it all the way home, while I was thinking to myself: 'You sap! Sucker! Fool! Why did you ever agree to this? '
The only one I can find is the one in the picture. That one is a downy woodpecker. I believe it is the smallest woodpecker in the USA.
I like look at the birds and discover what is hidden there!
This is fun---I shall keep on till I find all of them---or I ask you on bended knee to have mercy on a silly goose like me ;)
I know it isn't a poem but I rated it a 5 because I enjoyed it and that is what art is to me. I grew up around the Rocky mountains so I found many of the birds in the puzzle. Now living in Florida and Brazil I am aware of many more that don't exist there. I love birds and I loved your piece.
You live in Florida and Brazil? What part of Brazil? I lived in Brazil for 50 months!
An excellent poem.Kim Barney is surely a bird lover and a great puzzle master.I tried and could hardly identify ten or twelve birds hidden int this word-forest.Congratulations Grace Diane and also others who came very close to solving the riddle.
Oops --- PH sent my comment before I was finished. Here are the three birds that Bri did NOT find: LARK [line 1], KESTREL [line 2], and PIPIT [line 1 of third paragraph].
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I found 23, but the other 7 have eluded me so far. I waS WANting to do better!
Very clever comment. Keep looking. All 30 are there.