Author: Sylvia Forges-Ryan

Sylvia Forges-Ryan recently received the International Azsacra Poetry Award from the Taj Mahal Journal in Allahabad, India which published her poems in December 2014. Also, she won Third Prize in the 2014 Robert Frost Poetry Contest. Her book, Take a Deep Breath: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace, which won an R. H. Blyth Honorable Mention for Outstanding Books in Haiku Literature from the World Haiku Review in 2013, was selected for permanent inclusion in the American Literature Collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

Back from vacation— our finicky roses blooming better than ever

Summer afternoon a Bach sonata cools the air

Indian summer someone blowing on the embers

Summer romance a firefly flashes its green light

Urban sunrise the garbage truck brakes heave a sigh

Twilight the autumn hills give up their colors

Living with it in light and in shadow the garden buddha

Harvest moon their wedding rings tucked away one inside the other

Full moon how is it, my friend where you are

Spring fever dancing just for themselves girls in white dresses

Autumn afternoon we keep our distance in dappled light talking about the life we haven’t shared

All night the rattle at the iron gate the color of winter

Spring rain a sprinkle of arpeggios from the street musician

Lilies of the field — what the world calls doing nothing

Upset over news of refugees fleeing war and poverty I create one more wiping away the spider’s web (originally appeared in What Light There

Ten times ten thousand terrible things in this world and still I don’t want to leave it (from Dreams Wander On, Contemporary Poems of Death

slowly falling snow little by little I learn to forget you (originally appeared in White Lotus, Issue 6, 2008)

Autumn chill the sound of the wind on its way to the sea

First day of autumn a sunflower turns back toward earth have I used it well this life . . .

how do they manage migrating geese taking only their shadows