The last loon glides
cooing to the warm waters
colored leaves fall.

Nests heave under
Ice drifts on burdened shore
Loons gone south.

Welcome nests rise up
From pond’s melting shore
Loons Home to roust

Loon dives deep
To the water’s weeds
To eat trout.

Summer's almost over,
It's threadbare
As your towel;
The summer sands
Are shifting,
The beach is headed south.

The initialed picnic tables
Are stored for other outings;
The concession windows
Flapped now,
The busker's shouting quelled.

Sails are dropped
Like maple leafs,
The moon's rising
Too soon;
The night lights blaze
Over pitch and field,
Where sunshine
Shone in June.

Geese are wedging daily
To escape the wintery gloom;
I'll reacquaint
With the hinter sounds
Of lake winds
And banshee loons.

when he was 84, he rarely recalled
the Great War, though he left a finger somewhere
in French soil, and on deep sleep nights,
few and far between, it would call him
a spectral image of  gas dead faces
drifting through like sallow clouds
in the charcoal sky

his nephew was the only one left
to fish these green waters, to court the steady
trout that he too saw in his dreams--all the others,
even his own sons, marching  in the concrete squares
of the cities, visiting now and then like peddlers
hawking wares he could not understand...
soccer games and mutual funds
gourmet feasts at eateries
with cryptic names

the lake was still the same
the  loons chatting, the waves lapping
but without his Helen, the fish he caught
were usually granted reprieve, saved from
his sharp gutting blade, her sizzling skillet,
and without her beside him under her ancient quilts,
the nights were not longer, for grief, he knew,
did not stretch time, but only
made its circle smaller

was a sun sated Saturday
when the nephew had honey do's as good excuses
and the old man was left alone, sitting by a black rotary phone,
waiting for one of his old nine digits to dial the new nine and two ones,
it is what they all would have expected, a cry for help, a long mute ambulance ride, them seeing him helpless with hoses and wires, delaying the funeral pyres, as was the custom in this post teen century

instead, though he felt the anvil on his chest,
and sweat drenched his JC Penney work shirt,
he moved not his feeble fingers to the phone, but his fated feet
to the lake, once only a long a hop from the porch, now a mammoth journey, ten, twelve Sisyphus steps downhill--when he reached the waters edge, the fowl called him casually, their slow song on the currents,
and he sat in the fresh grass, watching the painted blue sky
he saw the fins of those he had set free, hoping
that would count for something
when he curled in fetal repose,
and closed his eyes
by this lonely lake

~

fowl flock to a gathering,
exactly why? no one knows.
an unkindness of ravens,
a ****** of crows;
a siege of blue heron,
gather geese in a horde;
seem to come in their sadness,
but stay for the show.
see swan sail in wedges,
jay scoff in their scold;
assembly, their strength,
nom de plume from of old.

ask me why do they gather?
could it be they’re unhappy?
might we also feel slighted,
a disservice agreed;
if our strength were declared
our insufficiency?
why do finches and
hummingbirds meet in a charm?
penguins, get to huddle,
and in happiness, those larks?

the cranes come in dances,
in company those parrots;
to parliaments owls,
in wisdom who-hoo-ing;
flamingoes to stand,
for an eagle’s convocation?
no, a nye’s not unpleasant,
for a pheasant you see;
and benign is a bevy,
quail flush neath a tree.

but, ’tis a bit scary,
lurking turkey in gangs,
hawk’s shadowy cast;
and warblers in confusion,
with buzzards in wake;
a wisp full of snipe,
whisp’ring, “good night”;
yet glorious are pelicans,
a squadron in flight;

and nothing so stirring, as
a starling’s constellation,
while an asylum’s
assembly for loons,
and a quarrel of sparrows,
are entirely drowned out,
by a drumming of peckers,
the wood kind, that is!

while sticks and stones,
may break all one’s bones;
those labels and words, do
leave a sting and a hurt;
all human, one race,
can unkindness defer,
diffusing by choosing,
our union assert!
but slinging maligning,
and kicking of dirt,
by abusers and losers,
let's leave for the birds!

~

*post script.

numerous fellow poets far more skilled than i, have posted a variety of well-written pieces using fowl flocking terminology. this is intended to be an assembly of the sometimes-silly, often-absurd and mostly-always-humorous assignments of those flocking terms, used in an imagined treatise about the hurtful labels we humans use to judge one another; labels that vilify, rather than unify.  for would not a battle that hasn’t any "winner" be far better fought hand-in-hand, than hand-to-hand?

terms for flocking fowl in order of use
(a few fowl have two flocking terms, and some flocking terms are claimed by two fowls)

an unkindness (ravens)
a ****** (crows)
a siege (herons)
a horde (geese)
a wedge (swans)
a scold (jays)
a charm (hummingbird, finches)
a huddle (penguins)
a happiness (larks)
a dance (cranes)
a company (parrots)
a parliament (owls)
a stand (flamingos)
a convocation (eagles)
a nye (pheasants)
a bevy (quail)
a flush (also quail)
a cast (hawks)
a gang (turkeys)
a wisp (snipes)
a squadron (pelicans)
a confusion (warblers)
a wake (buzzards)
an asylum (loons)
a constellation (starlings)
a quarrel (sparrows)
a drumming (woodpeckers)

oh yes, there are many more.  i'd love to see your favorite(s) left in the comments.
Steve (:

Hailstorms with big winds, trees writhing in breezes
Coyotes howling in moonlight, dogs when they sneezes
Alloys and carved toys, stone gargoyles with wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Skunk smells carried gently on nocturnal breezes
Sly double entendres and tickley teases
Beautiful salmon colored sunsets that make my jaw drop
Smell of pine 'n cedar in my sauna and wood shop!

Dolphins and doggies and toddlers and mooses
Saunas and cold plunges and honking V-flying gooses
Small mutts and storytellers and Pixar cartoons
Crazy call of the Maine dark of night loons
These are some of my nurturing tunes!

Volcanoes with lava and magma all oozing
Cross country skiing just gliding and cruising
Receiving massages unwinding and unbruising
I love my collections of adhesives and strings
These are a few of my favorite things!

So when the wasps sting
When the bored people whine
Wen I'm feeling dispirited and sad
I just think of a few of my favorite things
And I don't feel…so…bad!

My string is tangled, balled and mangled
Tied in knots from every angle
No spool to use and hard to tie
So long ago it used to fly
My kite my kite
My kite so high

I used to run against the moon
With kites above a lake of loons
We made a schooner in the sky
Their bills the keel, my kite the sail
My string the rope, the mast their tail
And as I watched, my bird ship fly
Into the sun above the sky

I lost it blinded, by the light
Through water eyes into the night
The loons came back, a thousand wings
Their music song a lake in spring
The bird ship gone, my kite ablaze
My string had vanished in the haze.

I see a wisp in the moonlit sky
Like first sight from a morning eye
The clouds came closer thin and slack
And at my feet in tangled black
My string My string
My string came back.

I threw my tangled ball of string
At crescent moon in early spring
With loons it flew toward new dawn light
A magic hand was formed in flight
Caught by the loons in feather hands
The knots untied on desert sands
And at my feet, my string did land

My thread was tangled, balled and mangled
Tied in knots from every angle
Unfurled above by feather hands
Above the foggy desert sands
I took my feathered string and ran
Ran toward the dawn
New kite new kite new kite in hand

Loons in the vineyard –  sound the alarm !
Satan is milking his metaphors.
Such silly music portends no harm;
call home the cows and open your doors.

Brian Hugh Warner, a paleface freak
after finding his mom’s mascara
darker enlightenment did seek
and crowned himself with Baal’s tiara.

Scary drag-queen, scandalous, vain
Marilyn – the creepy thespian
rolled that fish-eye and snorted *******
like Crowley…  how pedestrian.

Flashing his glowing cataract,
he gave the mommies quite a fright.
Censorship launched; no badder act
did sail (or assail) our sinking night.

Gothic dim-wits purchased CD’s
bought the goods, pierced parts, wore black.
(Cause for certain parents’ unease:
MTV’s Antichrist on the attack).

Son of Man – or rather, Manson
Milked to the max his demonic cow;
playing Satan’s naughty grandson
showing the flustered milk-maids how.

Urban legend surrounds this fowl
(those ribs removed – like Adam’s sin!)
Is he a misunderstood night owl –
or a has-been loon in a loony bin?

Rock-stars age (well, most) like a cheap wine.
or else in the way once-ripened grapes
withering, sun-struck, off the vine
transform, with age, into wizened shapes.

No – I am wrong. They age like prunes;
plums thus pass into their glory.
Even Luciferian loons
find lakes of fire at end of story.

(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 1, 2016)

Pitchforks gather,
Chinese made,
The red embroideries.

Autocrats swagger
Trumpeting
Bile hyperboles.

And wicked blather
Resurrects
The soul amputees.

Old Pantaloons, a Chiasmus
by Michael R. Burch

Old pantaloons are soft and white,
prudent days, imprudent nights
when fingers slip through drawers to feel
that which they long most to steal.

Old ***** loons are soft and white,
prudent days, imprudent nights
when fingers slip through drawers to steal
that which they long most to feel.

Keywords/Tags: chiasmus, pantaloons, *****, loons, *******, pun, wordplay, underwear, fetish, lingerie, pervert, perverts, *******