Day 25: The Nature of Leopards

Happy National Poetry Month 2023! Curious about what I’m doing? Want to play along? Read more here.

[Heads-up: If you’re visiting regularly, please know that the bold, blue text is what I’m writing fresh each day. The black text is the same each day:>) ]

It’s a second guest-poem by my sister Patty! She SO did not want to write poems, which makes me sad. She was convinced anything she came up with would be dumb. But I made her. (Oh, the joy of sisters!) Here’s what she came up with. We are big nature lovers, and she has a soft spot for cats, so it was no surprise she chose leopard as her topic.  She went back and forth on her choice for the final word. She was considering “screams” instead. But she wasn’t sure if it would be clear enough that the leopard had caught its prey, so she went with “eats.” We’re big fans of clarity :>)

Although neither of these collections specifically has a leopard poem, I immediately thought of two favorites: In the Wild, by David Elliott, and Dear Wandering Wildebeest, by Irene Latham. Stunning, both of them.

Celebrate Earth! A Virtual Picture Book PartyTonight is finally the night! the virtual book launch of 9 gorgeous nature picture books. Please join me and 7 other book creators for book talks, trivia, and giveaways! It’s this evening, April 25, at 6:30 p.m. CT. The event is free, but registration is required. Just click the image on the right for more info and to reserve a spot. Thank you!

 

What words will we be digging through today?

And here’s the card that we might pull our topic from:

So some possible topics are:

  1. even
  2. camp
  3. dance
  4. wind
  5. break

Will you join in? Would love to see what you come up with!

 

5 Responses

  1. Your words yesterday led to this:

    Amazing!
    Laugh!
    The giraffe
    sprays me
    Smiling.

    1. This makes me picture you and your grands at the zoo, Margaret! So much exuberance.

  2. Oh, Patty, I see we were on the same page, though you have captured it better than I. Mine is about a cheetah, first resting then I couldn’t figure out how to wake him, but my got to eat too.

    Margaret, fun giraffe poem. I’m not sure I would laugh or cry if I was sprayed by a giraffe! I like the laugh and smiling to sandwich the giraffe’s actions.

    Cheetah
    Quiet dreamer asleep
    When and where
    Surge, scream the attack
    Catch eats of home

    1. I’ll pass along your comment to Patty. She’ll be glad to know she wasn’t the only one struggling to portray the eating. I love the opposites you’ve captured. That “Quiet…” line. Oh! And then the visceral violence of predators. Accepting both sides of nature can be hard!

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