Category: Issue 23.2

equinox
the leaves release
their light

a willow weeping
into the stream
moan of a shofar

 

brooding
over world events
cicadas

 

 

 

(Won First Place in the Gerald Brady Senryu Contest (2021), Haiku Society of America)

 

history
in present tense
starlight

blue moon
the scratch and skip
of vinyl records

 

tattered wings
the slow fade
of a monarch’s reign

float parade
the Apple Queen’s
flushed cheeks

 

flies coming back
to his palm wine
the new yam festival

clementines
a ring from the rim
of the crystal bowl

 

 

a sack
of windfall apples
Sabbath

prairie restoration
a hundred miles
of lark song

 

autumn morning
my granddaughter and I
shake out the poppies

 

no gender
to the tulips
their soft touch

 

expanding universe
feeling at home
in my own skin

 

early dusk
the song of a lark
becomes rain

 

needling the cat
from the pine tree
mockingbird

rusted
and abandoned
summer pine

 

finding time
on a broken parking meter . . .
the autumn rain

whale-road
a rusted anchor stains
the beach sand

 

monitoring the dead zone blue crabbers

 

within the stillness rat’s ripples

 

 

( Originally published in Poetry Super Highway, December 2022)

runaway kite
tip of the string
soiled with blood

 

 

 

(Originally published in Heliosparrow)

 

foster care interview
a fledgling catches
an updraft

 

seeds blown from her yard
the son no one
talks about

 

 

fallen hickory nuts
another home run
off his makeshift bat

 

            dusklight
the wake of a black swan
      w  i  d  e  n  i  n  g

Victorian showcase
the silence
of songbirds

funeral procession—
a classic Harley
with an empty sidecar

country drive
I reorient
to landscape

 

thrift store
in a coat pocket
to-do list

spindrift…
another wave
of election ads

 

Hiroshima dome
cracked eggshell
of a new world

fallow field
a young man planting
mines

 

poppies at dusk
in my dream, he says yes
the boy lost to war

 

 

 

(Originally published in the UHTS Songbirds Online Anthology, 2022)

 

Gettysburg
 catbirds at a distance
  from the cannon line

 

drifting snow
each of the war dead
has their story

waking yet not waking …
this silent heart-to-heart
with my late father

 

chrysalis––
how little I know
of my father’s life

 

eaves dripping
what do I know
after all

 

wilting peony
resting in its featherfall
of petals

putting the wild
back in wildflower—
skunk cabbage

 

moving in
a patch of mint
by the backdoor

grandmother’s house
the ringing of
a landline phone

book club
a lengthy discussion
about the refreshments

 

autumn leaves
everyone has a book
inside them

yellow-leafed forest
beneath granite cliffs the creak
of saddles

autumn the panic room inside the oak

 

wild violet
making a home
where I am

 

lamplit barn
the calf inside
stops kicking

 

foreclosed farm
dinner bell ringing
in the dusty wind

crane
   by crane
      autumn
          moves on

 

burning leaves
a stranger at Auschwitz
asks me where I’m from

 

appointment time
handicap spaces filled
with geese

 

granting me
an audience . . .
hermit thrush

from the balcony
a lorikeet
whistles me up

 

a hummingbird
inside my rib cage
this fool in love

small talk
we exchange
candy hearts

 

a handful of stars
in the garden pail
     fingers dripping
         I offer them
              to you

wildflowers
when one word
is more than enough

 

making the most
of an old tin roof . . .
drumming flicker

solstice
on its tilted axis
the weathered nest box

Sunday church service
holding my attention
the sun through stained glass

Advent Calendar
the final window
a refugee mother

 

 

 

 

(Originally published in NOON, 2023)

children’s worship
one thankful for mice
another for cheese

tourist town
the ka-whop of flipflops
through the cathedral

new voice
in the choir—
migrant warbler

shelling peas—
each passing year
like the one before

New Year’s Day
a roseate spoonbill
lifts into dawn

creeping fog
the distant thrum
of a harbor tug

drifting snow
dropping a stitch
in the shadows

 

nuthatches
inching closer
thick snow

 

tired
of being tired
winter crows

patina
on dancing Shiva
                the guardian
of a ruined temple

 

another
           birdsong
summer
           afternoon
adagio

 

berries so ripe
they fall to my hand
summer love

 

he whispers into my deaf ear
i read his eyes

midnight rain gathering the jigsaw’s misfits

storm recovery
still no power
in the darkest neighborhoods

white moon at dawn the substation’s hum

 

a pinwheel
barely turning
midsummer sun

 

thunder moon
air holes in the lid of
a jar of lightning

 

summer lightning the wait of my thoughts

bridal mannequin
the price tag
around its neck

 

the things
she never celebrated
Mother’s Day

 

birthday cake
this reluctance to cut
through happy

retirement day
re-homing
my desk plant

 

understanding night
almost the last
firefly

 

a cattle egret
plucks a gecko from the grass
vacation’s end

holiday park
in every cottage
a different summer

lottery call expressions at the midnight cafe

smooth jazz
the bar stools
stashed away