Sunday, July 27, 2014

"Baby Turtle"


Baby Turtle

Like a thumbprint
you're unique, but common
in your perched preference,
still and content

until I wend my way forward
curious
if one so young
will hurtle away in fear.

Quickly answered
as pond's tranquil surface
safely pockets
your tiny, tumbling fury.

Guilty, I retreat
beneath July's blue sky
feeling ever the growling giant
to your tender little Jack.

by Margaret Bednar, July 27, 2014

The photo is a blurry mess - hastily taken with my iPhone.  I did take a video of it scurrying across the rock and back flipping and ker-plopping into the pond.  It really was cute … but I accidentally deleted it.

I've never seen a turtle so young and so small.

This is for "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Play it Again, Toads" - where I revisited Grapeling's word list HERE.  

10 comments:

Ella said...

This is sweet and enchanting! I love your ending. I hope to try your challenge tomorrow~ I have seen one tiny turtle which stunned me. Maybe I will share it with my poem~

I want to read your poem again!

Vandana Sharma said...

Such a lovely face of nature and its organisms!

Kerry O'Connor said...

There is much to love in this encounter with wild life. I love the comparison to a thumb print, and the way the water 'pockets' the escapee. The final allusion is perfect.

Wolfsrosebud said...

so cool when we can interact with things in nature... like holding one's breath

Anonymous said...

Such a sweet glimpse of nature. I, too, love the comparison to thumbprint and Jack and the Giant.

hedgewitch said...

I'm fond of box turtles--they *are* all different, even though they look so stereotypical--the thumbprint is a perfect simile, an echo of their shape, very visual. We had one in the yard for years with the most intricate jewel-like yellow markings on his shell, but he seems to have gone the way of all turtles. Thanks for sharing this moment with us Margaret, and that awkward sense of not being able to do anything but scare the wild things we want to love.

Grace said...

I like how you bring us into the scene specially the ending with: feeling like growling giant to little Jack ~ Have a good week ~

Magaly Guerrero said...

"your tiny, tumbling fury."

This paints such a clear picture in my head. I can see the little thing's indignation for having been disturbed, and the regret of the narrator expressed in that last line, too.

Sweet and summery.

Anonymous said...

love your turtle ode, Margaret :) ~

Amrit Sinha said...

I have seen small turtles ... they look too cute :-)