Happy National Poetry Month! Celebrating Nests

Birds are hopping, and flying, and singing, and --nesting! Yes, it's spring. The nest in the picture above is from last year, and I wonder if the same birds will come back to it. Time will tell. In the meantime, here's a poem I wrote for David L. Harrison's Word of the Month poetry challenge. (You are welcome to play along. Write a poem containing the word of the month and post it on that page.) 

                                                              NEST

                                                              Held high

                                                              In the branches,

                                                              A woven wonder

                                                              Of twigs, grass, mud;

                                                              Large enough

                                                              To shelter eggs,

                                                              Shield hatchlings

                                                              Launch chicks.

                                                              Home.

                                                                              © 2020 Jane Heitman Healy


A cozy rhyming picture book by Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple reinforces the theme of nest as home in You Nest Here With Me. The book shows a variety of birds and their amazing nests, with the title as comforting refrain for human chicks, illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

A brand new picture book about nests, released this March, by Randi Sonenshine, illustrated by Anne Hunter, is getting good reviews. Written like a rhyming "House that Jack Built," the text and pictures of The Nest That Wren Built detail the building of a wren's nest and life cycle.

How are you celebrating spring, nests, and poetry?