The cats and I are enjoying all the birds visiting to eat our birdseed: cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows and sometimes even an Eastern bluebird.
For the first prompt, describe the animal sounds outside your home. What birds wake you up? Do you hear cicadas or tree frogs? The screeching of neighborhood cats or dogs howling at a train? If you want, add traffic noise and sirens? Divide the day and night by these sounds, ending with an image/simile of the animal.
The second prompt is a writing exercise: rewrite the poem changing only the nouns, replacing the birds with the sounds of city life. See what happens. If you like a particular line, make that a ghostline and go from there.
The third prompt is to use the last line, “played on a flute carved from bone,” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after you finish drafting a poem and credit the poet.
The last prompt is (of course) write a poem from the following wordlist: “dawn,” “scold,” “feeder,” “screeching,” “course,” “canyon,” “break,” “mourning,” “breathy,” “echoes,” and “bone.”
Bonus prompt: write from the perspective of this cardinal, who is waiting for more birdseed.
Good luck writing.