Poet Laura: Pelican brief, pod, pouch, scoop, or squadron

“All that we behold is full of blessings.” William Wordsworth

We are in the season of giving thanks and giving gifts, and I am considering the forms that each might take. I am grateful that I live in a place where the weather is generally benign and I can begin my day with a walk. If I am out early, I watch the brown pelicans fly over the peninsula where I live. A group of pelicans is variously known by one of the following: brief, pod, pouch, scoop, or squadron. I had favored squadron, because looking through the telescopic lens of my phone’s camera, from the path I normally walk, I assumed that the birds I saw forming a line at the jetty were pelicans, perhaps young ones, waiting for their turn to fly.

On the first Sunday of the return of Pacific Standard Time, I got up early to walk to the jetty itself for sunrise. What I had thought from a distance were pelicans turned out to be Double-crested Cormorants. Though pelicans do fly in formation as if in a squadron, scoop is also descriptive.

Were it not for Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, raising the awareness of the effects of DDT, and saving the brown pelican from likely extinction, I would not be musing on a fine fall morning about the perfect collective noun for the pelicans in their brief, pod, pouch, scoop, or squadron, which bring with them the gift of joy every day of the year.

Gratitude

For the brown pelican
diving into morning ocean,
I thank you, Rachel Carson.

—Donna Hilbert, from Threnody, Moon Tide Press, 2022

An added pleasure of this morning walk is the casual chat of the fishermen who are also up with the sun. They offer live bait to one another, offer directions to other spots where the fishing is good. One fellow wishes me a blessed morning. I wish him the same. The day begins with kindness.

Kindnesses 

You hand me the cup of coffee,
fresh brewed, as I walk into the kitchen
just awake in my stockinged feet.

Each night when I brush my teeth
my toothbrush has been charged
because you switch out the plugs each day.

When you go to the store
how often do you come home
with something just for me—
this week, It’s It Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches.

The tile patio table I write on
passed along to us by an acquaintance
because she knew we liked it.

The hickory rake for the rock garden,
the sloped writing desk in the back bedroom,
both made by our friend, just for me, just for us.

I take the ingredients out—gnocchi, spinach,
grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese—
and make dinner. Yesterday,
the day after the election and the country fell,

I sent texts—I love you—to my brother, my mom.
I laughed with a friend last night on Facetime.
Put the trash bags in the can unasked.

Gathered the redwood needles
swept from the tree in yesterday’s wind.
The sun rises each morning,

some days breaking through the clouds,
some days not. But it’s there,
even during the most devastating storms
the sun is there, above the clouds, it rises and falls.

Just this morning I watched a monarch butterfly
drink from a Cosmos daisy.

—LeeAnn Pickrell, from Gathering the Pieces of Days

Some of my favorite gifts were given to me by loved ones. The rock painted red by my son when he was in elementary school, the witty and beautiful Valentine’s Day card from my late husband where he declared his love for me is even greater than his love for our beautiful Standard Poodle. And then, there is the costume jewelry that once belonged to my aunt and to my mother, and a few pieces from friends whom I hold dear, some still on terra firma, some not. Here is a favorite poem that beautifully expresses the potential longevity of a gift given with love.

Glimmers As They Go

One by one
my linchpins
are subtracted.
Pieces of jewelry,
pendants and earrings,
remind me of those
who gave them:
Janet, Jeanie, Lynn,
Roger, Mom.
When I flash
their bits of brightness
at my throat, in ears,
do they gleam again?
I cling to them,
my wire turtles, beads,
abalone sweater clasps,
yellow corncobs of fertility,
rosewood amulet
that broke apart,
I shine them,
bring them often
into light.

—Penelope Moffet

Kindness in Winter 

Young Scarlet stands in deepening snow—
where she knows the doe
knows she has stood
before—at the edge of the wood.
The doe turns her ears toward the soft, recognizable sound
in the snow on the ground.

She listens from far in the wood—
and from a place of long ago. Good
Scarlet feeds the gentle doe
red apples in the twinkling snow.

—Sally Nacker, from Kindness in Winter

Your Turn

What are your favorite gifts to give or receive? For what are you grateful?

Post and post photos by Donna Hilbert. Featured image by @ S@ndrine, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poems used with permission.

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Donna Hilbert

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella, Moon Tide Press, 2025. Work has appeared in journals and broadcasts including Eclectica, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, Tweetspeak Poetry, The Writer’s Almanac, and anthologies including Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, The Poetry of Presence I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Love is For All of Us. She writes and leads workshops from her home base in Long Beach, California. (Author photo credit Nathaniel Gutman.)

Latest posts by Donna Hilbert (see all)

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