Category: Issue 19.1

We begin our 19th year with an international crop of daily poems that will take us deep into the dog days of summer here in the northern hemisphere. For this issue’s

pruning – the spring sun widens its reach

spring thaw seeping into the back yard the sky

st patrick’s day a rebel song that died with my dad

eleven snowdrops my mother’s voice comes home

cultivating my love for wildflowers weeds

his just shaved face the fragrant coolness of spring

forsythia bush chirping yellow

first buds … the Morse code of a little bird

bent at the tip a few of my fingers aching to bud

I always wondered who planted them in the neighboring field, a double row of yellow daffodils, up each spring, winding toward nothing, as if arriving at an invisible

morning news the rising shriek of the kettle

bento box compartmentalizing my worries

from deadlines to deadlines- my unfinished poems

busy all day with their origami paper wasps

uncoupling… row upon row of fiddleheads

broken marriage bedrock of the dry creek

rain shower– an old man asks for the price of a walking stick

within rain… just the fluted song of a wood thrush

thunder and lightning holding him close through the tantrum

long sermon– biscuits and crayons passed along the pew

earthsong a heartbeat in spring  

dappled blue a Holstein heavy in the morning haze our leisurely pace toward enlightenment

road map the X no one remembers

ice-locked lake countless footprints to nowhere

cherry blossom rain those minutes I wished away

supernova. . . the years it took me to see the light     (Originally published in Mariposa #34)  

living alone in the attic room for years now the skylight frames my immigrant dream  

remembering the patterns of stars migrants  

sunrise barred light on the walls of the deportation centre  

border diner locals fill the window seats

train ride pulling away from my past

chattering crows– a clean slate of another day  

late night at the laundromat stories still unfolding

making sandcastles my son fills the moat from his bladder     (Runner-up in Haiku Calendar Competition, 2015)

blood moon my birth mother slams the door shut

Nantucket Island silence surrounds carved teeth  

loop trail but for now just out and back

slow pitch delivering another perfect enso

gibbous moon one egg short of a double batch

quince buds trying to explain my hobbies

a shift in the breeze… lilacs

spring fever he offers me a micro-dose

bougainvillea I carry my tea outside

no one left who remembers … memorial day

oxbow lake a rusty horseshoe over the missing door

wilderness one more stop to speak a flower’s name

not quite Mozart the staccato in our parting

still filling the room you left night blooming jasmine  

flubbed grounder the warmth of the benchwarmer’s place on the bench

elegy the boy soprano’s highest note

the awkward saunter of a magpie junior high

overcast the fluffed up kookaburra holds his laugh  

bushfire day– two magpies quarrel over the birdbath  

climate change a neighbor burns books  

it’s a monologue not a conversation kudzu

hot day sitting inside the fan’s white noise

stifling heat a spoon full of flies on the motel table  

the soft patter of an old flame moth night

#@!?*^ i rehash old passwords

thrift store the mannequin wears a mink stole

dappled light blackbird calls crisscross the path  

Abu Dhabi above the falcon’s cry dawn  

summer street a boy rides a wheelie out of sight     (Originally appeared in Frogpond 42: 2)  

using one to bookmark another summer reading

sunbeam under the overpass a cornflower blossoms

just enough for the trumpet vine cool breeze

power outage the distant sound of a saxophone  

summer twilight the sound of waves turning inward

after the scan the hospital monitor doesn’t settle

Lakeview, Chicago I used to think if I could just see the lake, I wouldn’t feel alone. From my eighteenth floor window, the despair nudges me closer to looking

pain meds wandering a maze of dim corridors

living will — she paints her fingernails different colours  

with nicotine-stained fingers he pays the fare winter rain

Winter evening sunset in a glass of cognac

the old elm its darkness perfected by snow  

sick in winter the infinite white of the ceiling

crescent moon she leans deeper into her cane    

falling snow – the memories I choose to keep

late winter cough the crack in the souffle’

bean harvest a snail’s tentacle touching sky  

anniversary of Apollo 11– losing the remote       (Jack Stamm Award, Finalist, 2004)

mid-July the wheat field quivers before thunder

cricket songs all of them oldies

wild orchid clinging to the bark our carved heart

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

beach roses getting changed under a towel

wiping sand from the broken conch . . . summer’s end

dusk crawls across the field crickets

Blue air whispers smoke? ? ? ? restless ghosts of summer.

an eagle shadows a wheat field’s yellow whisper

no wind in the wheat autumn equinox

summer ends the street vendor’s face visible beneath balloons

World Series the crickets singing for both teams

the fragrance of pencil shavings September rain

sunlight on a crow’s wings end of summer