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