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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 15h

@emteepoetry.bsky.social #PromptCombo #Winged So in contrast to my haiku here's a long piece (in three parts). The Gift of Grace

The Gift of Grace

A murmurating starling said
“While we’re performing overhead
my feathered friends and I have found
that all your efforts on the ground
are lacking our esprit de corps
and have, in brief, been rather poor.

“So now we offer, almost free,
this stunning opportunity,
a course we’ve tailored to your needs
(for modest sums of bugs and seeds).
We’ll give you all the skills you lack
in ten short weeks, or beetles back.”

So every day from eight til three
they coached their choreography,
the path to pirouettes and poise
and, at appropriate times, the noise
of one enormous forest fire,
the sound of flocks in night attire.

And then, to banish any doubt,
certificates were handed out
affixed with odoriferous seals
(resembling wax, but not quite real)
and glossy wing-tips brushed the hand
of each proud human graduand.

Then as they nibbled cheese and worms
the boldest tweeted in these terms
#notimelikethepresent
the 4cast 4 this aft is pleasant
Let us go now you and I
and dance beneath the salmon sky

At once from every habitation
shop and school and railway station,
bank and coffee bar and baker’s
factory and undertakers,
up from cellars, down from attics
minds intent on acrobatics

in one Terpischorean tide
human beings stepped outside.
and flowed away in braided streams
uphill, to where the upland seems
to shatter on a gritstone edge,
where climbers grip and falcons fledge,

and on the sward below the height
they gathered in the fading light
to sway and waver, pulse and curl,
plume to a seamless mass, then whirl
away in a filementous burst.
They had no score, no steps rehearsed,

their rule, their principle, their groove
was “see what your neighbour does, and move.”
and when their spirographic spree
had reached its breathless apogee,
into a final swirl they drew
and poured as from a jug into

the thicket of a nearby wood.
And long into the night there could
be heard their sleepy repertoire
of “Goodnight Jonboy,” “Goodnight Ma,”
and when the sun enflamed the East
the Age of Hearth and Home had ceased.

And in that dawn the Faculty,
observing from a nearby tree,
saw this event could now afford a
chance to change the pecking order
swapping drafty reeds and fences
for bijoux urban residences.

Our forbears didn’t hesitate,
they chose at once to relocate.
So now my sons, my daughters bold
the story of that day’s been told,
you know how starlings gave the race
of humankind the gift of grace

and in return became the heirs
of roosts with windows, walls and stairs.
So tuck your bills beneath your wings
and as your speckled father sings
a coda to this fairy tale,
we’ll dream, we’ll dream

we’ll dream, we’ll dream
we’ll dream along the dado rail.

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 16h

I'm rather prone to writing haiku about birds... @emteepoetry.bsky.social #PromptCombo #Winged. over ridge and furrow the rise and fall of a swallow -- that twig's still not right ! coots are building -- the crows build the tree back into itself

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Jill the maths teacher has chills. Today she's multiplying. #7syllablesquad #7syllablesentence

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

hatchlings the cuckoo chick knows what to do #haikufeels #hatch #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

#AcrosticOctober #POEM Pedestrian musings measured in feet Or firecrackers spitting sparks Emotion recollected in tranquility Muses abound. "What larks!" #Wordsworth #Dickens

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

#AcrosticOctober #Squirrel Seeing them Quarrel over acorns Unaware of the fox In the shadows Reminds me of our Restless bickering and Everlasting Love until death

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Last week I found a little cache of poems I'd forgotten about. This is one of them. Plenty of #sky, not a lot of peace #PoetsofDoom @daveashleypoet.bsky.social @sonnetsmith.bsky.social @phylogeneticsteve.bsky.social @jenthorne.bsky.social

And if after the last tide
sharp eyes found us, four
arrays of crystal with tints
of copper and sulphur,
the rocky terminals of four trails,
and noted the fossil jaws
gaping, heads thrown back

They could not know that it was not
for fear of that dull twang
of the earth impossibly deep
that signalled the end of days
or the uplands leaning over
one half of a round world and
toppling onto the other

But for what came one
second before, when our kites
so high and small
staked out the whole sky

and into that perimeter
silent until seen
thundered a machine,
a green carapace,
roundels, and rotors
beating a path to our bright lures

ready, I was sure, to catch and twist
and crumple into the widest of eyes
and the marks of our feet along the sand

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Sixpence in my stocking Halfpennies on her eyes Images of Kings and Queens Nothing there but lies Yes, nothing there but lies #AcrosticOctober #poem #poetry

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I was considering posting... beware houseplants of the earth I am the apocalypse

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#fragmentsfriday @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social #winter *Uncle Joc* we made an igloo which was not an igloo just a pile of wet snow hollowed out

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#AcrosticOctober #PUMPKIN Previously in 'Pumpkin Diaries' Under 'Seasonal Experiments' My followers saw me making a 'Pie' Knowledge of the result has been Incinerated and Now we will move on

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

somebody or something is cackling it could be geese or it could be my mother #haikufeels (cackle) #tanka

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#AcrosticOctober #GOLDEN #poem Grey is the colour Of my true love's Honda Left on bricks by thieves Donovan preferred mornings Evening is my subtle tablecloth Newly rinsed and hung on the stars

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#31DaysofGraves day 2: Urn Holywell Cemetery, Oxford Regenald Walter Macan, the father of Eric and Robert, was the Master of University College, Oxford The first quotation is from the Wisdom of Solomon and the second from Prospice by Robert Browning.

An elaborate gravestone with carved decoration including columns, an urn and a lamb. The inscription is in the alt text of a second photograph

Inscription in lead lettering:
AGNELLO DEI
ERIC R.F. MACAN
ANN. XI. MENS.V.NATO
1 AUG 1888
2 JAN 1900
------
He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time.
------
Rt BASIL MACAN
CAPT> 28th Lt. CAV.
KILLED IN ACTION AT YPRES
SUNDAY JVNE 13 1915
AGED 32 YEARS
Sudden the worst turns the best to the brave

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

#31DaysofGraves Day 1: flower waterlilies Holywell Cemetery, Oxford Jane Sophia "died at the Provosts Lodgings Oriel [College]" in 1887. Her brother Charles Carmichael Binning Monro was a landscape artist and inventor of a well-known type of watercolour box/palette

Detail of a sunlit gravestone in grey stone with carved waterlilies. Text visible is "Jane Sophia daughter of Alexander and Harriet Binning Monro". There are other memorials behind.

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Reposted by winterroom

Dr Anna Fairley Nielsson @annaandthedead.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#31DaysOfGraves starts TOMORROW! Welcoming posts from graveyards, cemeteries, or related places throughout October. No rules - interpret however and wherever you want, but AI is strongly discouraged. Image is the New Jewish Cemetery in Kraków. #cemetery #graveyard #heritage #genealogy

An image of the New Jewish Cemetery, Kraków, overlaid with text:
#31 Days of Graves
Day 1: Flower
Day 2: Urn
Day 3: Glass
Day 4: Entrance
Day 5: Vehicle
Day 6: Weather
Day 7: Home
Day 8: Animal
Day 9: Lettering
Day 10: Missing
Day 11: Humorous
Day 12: Ordinary
Day 13: Unusual
Day 14: Brick
Day 15: Language
Day 16: Faith
Day 17: Music
Day 18: Earth
Day 19: Water
Day 20: Fire
Day 21: Air
Day 22: Mourning
Day 23: Wings
Day 24: Contrast
Day 25: Tree
Day 26: Accident
Day 27: Portrait
Day 28: Landscape
Day 29: Fruits/Vegetables
Day 30: Colour
Day 31: Memento Mori

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

gasps at the aerobatics food for the hawk #haikufeels (gasp) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

what flowers what foliage may grow from a promise! #haikufeels (promise) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

it's been fun if I come back it will be for this #senryusunday #senryu #haiga

A small but tall tea pot with creamy glaze and trails of blue roses and other flowers. Gold detailing on the tall spout and handle. (I'm in love)

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"A kestrel! A kestrel!" I'm watching out for bumps in the road #haikufeels (bump) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Oxford - the thrill of the familiar places where I knew them but I'm walking in the shadow of their absence #TankaThursday #thrill #tanka #micropoetry

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Reposted by winterroom

Magedah Shabo @magedah.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

planetary turn— I take it this is about me #DailyHaikuPrompt | equinox #haiku #senryu #poetry

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I'll castle on the Queen's side. That's not a euphemism. #7syllablesquad #7syllablesentence

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

a petty crime this nettle does not deserve my wrath #haikufeels (deserve) #tanka #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

the same sun fierce in its circularity that Euclid saw #haikufeels (circle) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

@rwldproject.bsky.social Sheffield Daily Telegraph 8 Dec 1920 (from FindMyPast). (I was actually researching the newsagent, who is buried in our local cemetery.)

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

a knock in daylight means another delivery bookcases sigh and stacks topple in my dreams #TankaThursday (knock) #tanka

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Reposted by winterroom

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 09/09/2026

Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).

A crescent Moon seen during the day, arcing from upper left to lower right of the frame. At lower centre is the full disk of Jupiter; the small dots to its upper left and lower right and Io and Ganymede, respectively.

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I may not have told the whole truth.

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I never drive on the left. I never drive on the right. The truth is I never drive. In fact I've never driven except to fail my three tests. #7SyllableSquad #7syllablesentence

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I do not love the kitchen slugs but I let them live #haikufeels (live) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

It's the Universe callin' God's not emptyin' the tombs. #7SyllableSquad #7syllablesentence

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Reminds me of this, said to be an Arab proverb... "do not consider yourself unlucky until you become an undertaker and people stop dying"

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

sorting a sensuous harvest 50 grades of grape #haikufeels (grade) #haiku

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

the reckoning is coming I choose to believe that these spiders spinning in the moonlight know more than all my professors #DailyHaikuPrompt #tanka #reckoning

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

summer is ending 42 things on my to-do list 1. Write a to-do list #haikufeels (number) #haiku #senryu

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winterroom @winterroom.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

silhouettes shed their cow-ness in the sunset #vss365 #haiku #silhouettes

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