Category: Issue 23.1

sunshaft
        a stab
            of joy

 

 

soft light rings
the mouth of a vase
spring rain

someone’s jacket
beside the trail
warming days

 

first-born flowers*

 

In the place where we scattered her ashes last summer, there’s now a tiny crown of purple shoots adorning the snow.

early March
just enough

recycling
the recycling—
rogue wind

 

juniper wind
the creek below
completes a chord

 

snowdrops
i tell him the river
speaks river

sprinting from the waves spring laughter

 

 

 

(This is a tan renga, a form of linked verse, by Jonathan Roman

paperweight
the unbroken silence
through the years

spring melt
snow moving out of
its silence

 

mountain stream
over slippery stones
dancing with the stars

 

small brook . . .
a wren’s beak dips
into the babbling

 

an inland gull
shakes out its feathers—
long-awaited rain

 

leaving home —
the mountains sink
behind me

 

I teach my children
what my father taught me—
river of stars

 

old churchyard
the locals all
at odd angles

 

second wedding
church bells
flatted by time

 

the song remains the same song sparrow

 

guitar solo
on the car radio—
my fretting fingers

Irish pub
rolling hillsides
in every song

 

small talk
between songs
a tuning mandolin

 

sleepless night…
parsing out the language
of leaves

 

hint of woodsmoke
the collie sleeps
with one ear cocked

gone from the forest
the flower I knew
only by touch

hot air—
talk of climate change
over drinks

 

between derricks
the reservation
contains buffalo

knee deep in memory mountain scree

he makes a pitch
she walks
spring practice

 

the smell of spring motorcycle sounds

 

traffic jam
watching the clouds
pass me by

canal lift bridge
loose kite snagging
on the counterweights

the mathematics
of wings in flight—
butterfly

 

from aster
to zinnia
the hummingbird

 

 

pulling weeds
from between the bricks—
this hold on life

wild rose–
the child
they never expected

 

away from mum
a toddler shakes stones
from her shoe

the long shadow
of a flower vendor
Mother’s Day

the last song I sing her
the lullaby
she taught me

 

outgoing tide . . .
the tug of little hands
pulls us to the sea

breaking waves
we talk with our children
about our ashes

fulfilled
in my small life
bonsai

who am i

   a falling leaf

gives the answer

daily jog
an abundance
of may

 

 

(Originally published in Frogpond 44.3, 2021)

day moon
thoughts of you
when we were us

fading contrail
what life makes
of pipe dreams

 

milky way
we argue the distance
between stars

 

 

(Originally published in Hedgerow #125)

Venus appears,
a sharp curl of light
planed off
the gone sun

 

still seeking
a hill to die on
my father at ninety-two

 

stamp album
a page from a country
that no longer is

the icy bridge
over our childhood river —
at opposite ends
we look past each other
in this journey to our dreams

 

beneath the bridge
goldfish pause
in reflection

 

winter storm—
icing drizzled on
cinnamon buns

winter sky
another friend
to be missed

three-day blizzard
my thoughts
pile up

snow on snow
all the things this pill
cannot fix

 

winter morning
a support group
of apple trees

weak winter sun
how fragile
our resolve

a little closer
to my old self
fresh snow

 

finding another way    new snow along the forked branches of the pine

 

click of the wind silvered with frost feather grass

father’s old coat a life held in the creases

single father
my daughter cooks me
a make-believe dinner

 

graduation day
the upward tumble
of starlings

the choices we make distant thunder

 

another day
with nothing to do
moss-covered millstone

mill pond
a mallard ripples
the su nl ig ht

between duckweed
open water turns into
a ribbon of gold

 

backwater cove …
an old man fishes out
a bit of sunset

 

 

(Originally published  in The Haiku Foundation website’s kukai, October 2022)

 

tidepool minnows the splosh of a spoonbill

clouds shift
beneath a child’s steps …
summer sea

daylilies the news can wait

 

as if I had a choice
the warm embrace
of the waves

cranberry bog
my inhibitions rise
to the surface

lingering heat
a peach grows heavy
on its stem

a pinch of lavender almost a bee

 

cactus flower
with the best
of intentions

border crossing—
roses climb over
post and rail

new in town
garden club program
on invasives

 

slipping
under a chain-link fence
honeysuckle

long lost relative
the slur in his slur

 

 

(This tan-renga was composed by Jonathan Roman and Dyana Basist)

Chinatown
the prices of produce
offered in song

 

family vacation
the tangled roots
that trip us

 

rock art dreams of a shaman

 

beach reading the driftwood’s code

 

sequoia seeds
how we save ourselves
for later

the dawn in each drop
of bracken dew

 

 

(Tan renga, a form of linked verse, by Kath Abela Wilson and Billie Dee)

she goes in for a fork
comes out with a plate —
newly diagnosed

 

 

(Originally published in Blithe Spirit 33.1, February 2023)

 

chrysanthemums
my name misspelled
on the get well card

 

echocardiogram
the underwater singing
of my heart

 

homeward bound
whispering your name
to the moon

cicada dusk
this death poem
will never do

mosquito
his little theater
of cruelty

mid-August night
a few fireflies
have overslept

lazy beach day
a blue crab’s raft
of bubbles

loose tea leaves
overflow the scoop
autumn evening

 

aquarium nightshift
from one of the tanks —
the slap of a fin

 

the long sigh
of an ebbing wave…
summer’s end

standing in the waves
the gull’s cry
lingers

first cool September morning
   catbird wrenching its cry
wrenching its cry

one large wave
a dash
for an ending—