Category: Issue 26.1

longer days…
leaving winter behind
a glove at a time

winter thaw
a stream broadens
my perspective

crossing into spring
northside ice
at the bridge

 

first crocus ice breaking the Susquehanna

 

river of mist
a breath between
mountains

mild spell
– an exit hole
in the molehill

nearing spring
a little nest
of a heart

 

finding her name
in a word search
spring snow

 

Taking the only thing
she could to her grave
family secrets

 

meditation retreat…
my day
measured in breaths

 

sunny spell
the intoxicating scent
of hyacinths

 

fading beneath
the fading cherry blossoms
cherry blossom viewers

 

old age
daylight we can’t keep
in the room

 

 

old hands
my shared ancestry
with a leaf

there’s a certain marsh
you know the one
if I could return just once
I would
dream in colour again

sepia streetscape
out of the blue
a Jacaranda

mizzling rain
the slow accumulation
of tax forms

 

plans
forgotten
old penny jar

faraway shores
my lucky coin
for the ferryman

adopted language
finding a new family
of gods

 

painting
his despair
the red of a siren

smoke
stars fading
to fire

starling speckles . . .
I find the stardust
within me

canyon crow
answering
itself

 

a porcine squeal
from the microwave
breakfast sausage

 

small town waitress
the slight sadness
behind her smile

 

clear down
to its stony bottom
Adirondack lake

 

above all
the beneathness
earthworms

having seen
enough already
mayfly

 

between leaf and sun
the damselfly’s
electric blue

 

morning blush
the sunset flames
in the rosebuds

gone from us…
a last bloom
on her heirloom rose

 

spring rain
hearing my mother’s voice
in the names of flowers

 

no end
to this grief. . .
reheated tea

 

funeral hymn
time and again
the same wave resurfacing

fading light . . .
she takes off her bangles
to play the guitar

 

 

(Originally appeared in Frogpond 48.2)

calm day
the still wind chimes
play a bit of Cage

jazz fest
the morning after bass
of a bullfrog

bluebells…
the adagio
of a honeybee

blue sky
& then
there’s the blues

 

creek song
a rainbow thrashing
against sky

sculling the undercurrent
of conversation

 

(Tan renga written by Billie Dee and Lorraine Padden)

 

 

Saturday night
the same war
on every channel

light snow
an interpreter
of crevices

blank sheet
the last turn
of the Zamboni

 

deep freeze

“We’re the ones that’ll kill you,” the furnace repair man
looks me in the eye. “Sure, the plumber could flood your
house, and the electrician could set your

halfpipe
a snowboarder hangs
above the void

 

hard freeze
the warmth of old journals
in the fireplace

 

autumn wind a streak of white in his daughter’s hair

autumn
into winter
further tests

 

second opinion
wild geese
veer as one

healthcarefree
spinning the syringe

 

election crisis—
the chess king hides behind
the pawns

 

fogbow
turtle eggs near the tideline
scattered and soaked

golden hour
a gray whale swallows
the sun

 

sunrise years ago
the song of waves
when I proposed

warm rain
the whole sea
to ourselves

slipping out of her wetsuit thunder

sea cave echoes of desert wind

a distant train
underlines the horizon
Mojave Desert

 

lovelorn
a roadrunner ruffles
his crest at me

 

metro train–
young lovers
steady each other

finding
my way home
honeycomb

summer solstice
the first dahlia
so brazenly itself

long-tailed duck
she finds a name
that fits

latchkey girl
seven library books
stacked to her chin

cicada shells
photos of summer
half a life ago

 

boyhood dreams
the weight of stones
in his pocket

closet moths . . .
this slow eroding
of memory