On my walk today, I saw my first robin. It appeared perplexed and it might have good reason for feeling that way. It is supposed to get cool with snow, possibly accumulating over the next days.
I imagine food is at a premium for robins now, unlike the magpie I saw a few steps further along the path.
A sign of spring–
A robin walks someone’s fence,
Anxious and tentative.
It moves cautiously,
Not taking flight
Less concerned with me, than food.
Winter ground cold,
No food in the hardpan–
No earthworms tilling the soil.
Image from All About Birds © Christopher L. Wood
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Happy Spring, Ivon! Oh, how wonderful when that snow starts to melt and our beautiful songbirds return. A perfect announcement of their arrival in your poem. 🙂
Thank you Bette. Most of the snow is gone, but we are expecting some accumulation this weekend.
Beautiful poem !!!
Thank you Lara.
Birds are a sure sign of spring here in the mountains, even better at prediction that the budding leaves.
They are. The other day we saw our first Canada Goose of the spring. When we used to go to the farm at this time of the year, there was a pair of mating Bald Eagles. The have an intuitive compass and clock.
Sweet. I hope s/he found something to eat and I hope the weather warms up soon.
After I wrote the poem, I saw a second one flying with something in its mouth. I wondered if they are more focused on nest building now. It is going to be cool for a few days. It is spring time in Alberta.
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
Thank you Michael.
🙂
With our snow and cold temperatures here in Saskatchewan, the lone goose I saw this week will feel like packing his (her?) bags and heading back south… I know it is coming eventually, and can’t wait for those robins to hop around in their worm-gathering dance again.
I keep looking at the weather in Edmonton and it would not be “hoodie” weather for my walks. It is here. It will come, but it seems to have been a long winter.
For sure. Have you been plagued by tent caterpillars out there? They’ve been terrible here for the past few years. I am sincerely hoping that this late spring will dampen their impact. It would make the price we pay for delayed warm weather a little more tolerable.
I have not seen them, but they might be more abundant as you move away from the city. I agree that a cool spring can slow their reproduction down.