Winter
All’s Quiet
rippling like the elephant’s ear
or ticking tails like bulls
and cows, there is
no pattern or telling how
rare or often it bubbles
up and over the fenced
teeth and wide-brimmed lips,
and always when this
forked version spits out
I’m unprepared
to move as far
left or right as needed
to avoid it or
reconcile its appearance
with the teeth and lips
and face behind
Dynasty
Gentle and measured
web-footed stepping of geese
signaling beaks as tired wings rest,
Li Bai and Du Fu yet walk for me
under the orchard’s mottled shade
with thoughtful nods and
sage hands clasped behind
Fire Towers
Chilled trees
with branches empty
yet tipped in ready buds,
my fingers spread keen
watchmen for the hiding
scouts of summer
dressed in thicker fuller breezes,
making forays behind hills,
before its march
breaks onto the valleys
edging my palms,
so as not to be taken
by surprise
by its growing
mass crowding
out my cool
breath that my buds
crack and fall with
out opening
even
Estuaries
Eddies of them flow
past as bark mulch
in my palms hard and soft
pieces filling every sense
of cupped hands heel to nail
tips with all their types
of feeling I too easily forget
to look beneath the wood
dust to their soil and what’s left
there that germinates
in me
Rarely Seen
No songs, it captivates
with silence of wings
that swim the airs
or fade when stilled
absent flits of dainty birds,
its nest away somewhere
a secure bough
the ideal perch protects
by vantage views,
nor colourful even
in beak or feathers,
but eyes compelling
as star giants ageing
their knowledge yet alive
to surrounding unknowns
and watchful even if
seeming indifferent
this owl heart
Friends, Family, Colleagues
Had just one feather pried
its hollow silk night line between
my soul and me, heart and bones,
that single keenly shanked
wound soon after quaking would start
to close then scar and I’d have stood
a good chance against you
Karasu1, not lain counting
the soft shafts to hurry on
this slowly blurring sleep
1 “Karasu is an ominous bird, different from a crow, raven, rook or blackbird”, The Classic Tradition of Haiku - An Anthology, Edited by Bowers, Faubion; Dover Publications, Inc., 1996, note 1 page 14
Lovely
An ocean of blue-white
snow falls in pieces
on faces jagged and peaked
then fills in the lines
of clear cuts and erosion
with its luminous finery
that flatters not hides them
And these ranges finally
in winter are beautiful
now bared of youth coloured
flowers and green tree cover
striking the eyes in air crisp
or unseasonably warm as
only mature women can
stand angled with gashes
and age shown or traceable
and gaze leveled to meet
one discerning as rare this
honesty with awareness
Scarecrow
Every day
being dead I stand
a scarecrow
guard of the near empty
field, from these crows
perched all atop me
each gripping tight
to lean one claw up
to its beak and eat what
grain was left,
as I yet turn my
in and out pain
ful grimace to one
to chase them
all away
Leaving
It became comfortable
the imprints of the many
uneven stones gnarled roots
and matted leaves etched
the length of me through
my own weight all released
until it became un
comfortable without their
rough engraving and pressure
too familiar and too old
to trace the memory, so
I now find this stance
on my own weight held up
through the soles of me
and this skin smoothed
like petals basking though un
mapped and untouched but
by the bees and humming
birds buzzing and hovering
respectfully or fingertips caressing
gently, all so unexpectedly
intriguing that unnerved with
anticipation I’m yet startled
by how much it feels even
innate deep-rooted through
and through me being me
unbranded it’s become glorious
Alone after Nineveh
Sincerely I miss it
but not its shade
or shelter from
the all exhausting dryness
of the sweltering winds
and parched air
surrounding to the
point of swooning,
truthfully I do
miss my bottle-gourd
plant I didn’t seed or grow
its unexpected yet
not the least unsettling
presence being such calm
company I took its sudden
withering too deeply when
I must have known I wouldn’t
take it when it came
time to go
Flying
Flying arches in the great wide blue,
A heart peaceful and lively
Like a child running arms full span,
Wanting others to come to feel this,
They look up, sadly, mouthing ‘loner’
Place
If in the sea I lived
below the surface
there the endless
overhead stretching
of waves with their ripples
would take my heart
in calm and smooth steppes
following them, and not
bracing for constant assaults
to my soul tide after tide
marching past all my rocks
endlessly on this coast
where I live
Open sea
Pronged leaves
of the Japanese
Maple buoy slightly
in the rainy air, their points
curved down to keep
the bodies up
from its streams while
clutching each a drop
for added strength, so
what appeared as
stoic honour all along
was fragile fear
of one leaf in a sea
of others holding nothing
anchored or substantial
in the ceaseless
currents it rides
only and never sails
The Youngest
When I’ve finished stooping
picking up the toys
of those older and cleared
and packed away their boards
of strategy and posturing
they only abandon when they can
play outside in life
When I’ve set out ideals
by words imperfect and divine
and aimed to show them
in laboured example falling
short and getting up again
to have them take all in and keep none
Then I sit cupping the hot tea
and drifting each iris to the distant
Montana clouds unbound
long-necked California sequoia
Alberta plains spread to no horizon
and Pacific waves breaking until
broken only by the crickets
of my twilight as the fireflies
float outside my darkening pane
blinking neon signs to remind me
another sleepless night is near
When I Needed It Most
A dear one’s
false defense testified
as truth lays
open the heart to salt
water’s unfeeling cold,
and vulture box jellies’
long-tailed tentacles,
so finally
when all stinging
slows the flesh
is dead or so
I hope
Ugliness
Afterward
having taken my only
pumpkin skinning the insides
for garbage and making
target practice of its shell
they say that wasn’t really
fun like they expected
Make the Best
Are you sure I am
in fact an orphan haven’t
I from time
to time groves even
forests of older wiser
siblings plus saplings
looking up to
me and clouds of aunts
writing gentle cards in tight
or round calligraphy looking
down fondly from
a distance and here
on the coast my seas
of cousins I see
often outside and when
they’re playing in the
wind they always wave in
deed and every day
grandpa sun isn’t away
working he glows full of
stories or steals a smile at
me from behind his
white papers now and then as
if not to let grandma see him
be less than full
grown and each night her moon
face serene is sweet as a
lullaby that impels me to
smile sweetly too so yes in fact
with all these in sight
daily I can’t be
an orphan can I?
Regrets
Time passes in families
like it doesn’t all inclined
for ease or vain in false
discernment returning
to cache our secrets where stored
before despite breaches withstood
by one and all over
time and trued up sense
with calm eyes reminding us
in times of approaching
war or great attainment
those who watched us
grow may make our
worst consiglieres
Late Autumn
I visit daily at least
not from piety though
that house draws me
or I should say
its shingles sliced so
thin but scaled tight
enough to keep out
tree-bending snows deep
trolling winds or loads
of bricked rain
needling down about
that couple by a
fire inside, as
incredibly those
shingles fence
in warmth as cool
as it gets on
their other side, and the
couple don’t know how
tight the fence posts
grip the soil against
the trawling storms
or how the coals’ heat
stays around them
how I look weathered
and worn at those brick-
strong shingles in
awe confused at
their impossibility
The Leap
Many charmed by truth
they say are not enough
beguiled to stand firm
for it like you once
felt drawn by me to look
close with your all
but ambition and
Just as many are wanting
out of what’s missing
to confirm that charm
of a breeze as constant
affection that my heart
leapt the chasm with all
sincerity outstretched and
fell and fell and fell
The Cliff
So eager to grow
to try again to learn
to listen to your elders
to proper authority
to even we fragile ones
so easy to droop our blooms
or shake in bleak or
raw weather then
perk upward after
you invested emotionally
and before your assistance
was complete
of course I fell and
farther daily and no
I’m not the least sorry
even if you are even if
integrity has attached
its chord from you
to a soul other than
this one that looks toward
your face like it were fixed
just to reflect the moon
light closer so I won’t
anymore be in the dark
afraid and that
chord forever
divided the soul
from its face even then
I couldn’t regret the fall
or every day descent
to this place
for look – on this slope
the flowers here I’ve
never seen before
Pitt River 2016
I remember
clearly as the shallow river
itself being carried
along by my hands barely
stepping through the stoney
bed and body
stretched out
behind them coasting its
surface down waters
deepening to the neck standing
to finally swim awhile before
climbing out and up bank
and sailing yet again for
how I’ve loved always the
water until until the earth
and you whispered
to offer friend
ship even everlasting
and I surrendered
all future rights to
liquid suspension for legs
of needles to walk
to you and be
close that I might for
once know
the warm rays of that
foreign ship indeed
and suffered those pins
gladly though it
was never anchored
but drifting along
toward its own
other mooring so there
were no more legs or
rivers for me but Ariel’s
dry tears and others’ dreams
losing child-like wonder
and a woman’s heart at
once
