Haiku

redwing blackbirds fly
over dissolving cattails
treetop eagle cries

Nocturnal Nurture

the shadow follows and we
indulging our appetites
swallow
ingest the rich soil
of darkness
humus for the spirit

Reminiscence: A Haiku

dark house just one light
shadow crosses torn curtain
flickers of the past

Spring Fever

You have been the teacher
unwilling to release me as you
follow broken stone pathways
into your garden filled with flowers
whose precise and common names
you love to pour off your educated tongue,
like larkspur, honeysuckle, iris.
Today a stormy wind blew open
your peeling picket gate
and I crossed open fields
mossy unkempt knolls,
dug bare toes into rich foliage beneath the forest firs,
knelt down before a small wild orchid
the petite purple slipper hanging head down
a harbinger of transformation
beckoning my Cinderella finger
to lift it tenderly
to the light.

Songs of Arousal: a Haiku

waterfall magic
tumbling over mossy rocks
arousing song birds

Bed Room Stories

Bed Room Stories


The one about the tortoise who
found love under a bridge with
his soul mate who, having lost her
own shell tucked into his

The one about the magician
having had seven shots of scotch
before bed and then
juggling fire sticks how he
burned his lips from trying
to kiss the sky

The one about the gorgeous saint Selena
braiding her hair into skeins of silver
letting them down out her towered window
only to grow faint-hearted
cutting her own locks at her chin
and curling up on the floor

All of these and more read to me
tales of distant worlds
mythology as dear to me as the
swish of my dead brother’s heartbeat
which every night I listened for

waking with the stars
haiku chanting their stories
sleep is elusive

After the chill

Green shoots erupting
from brown wintered branches
everywhere these reminders
that love will surprise.

The Dream of Us

That night I cried myself awake
from the dream of us.
In my vision
winter had suspended icicles
from the portal of the house
where I wanted us to live,
and, wearing nothing
but silk pjs and a knitted hat,
I had taken you
to show you how they sparkled
in the snow moon’s light,
all juicy and with daring,
threatening to loose
their fragile tether
the way it seemed I also lived
in those barren days
before our spring tide
before our full-blown thaw.

She drifts so far away

She drifts so far away
from all the faces and their cues,
feeds on photographs and memories
woven in the retinue
of images she carries
like moonlit dances in the wind,
in her dreams she beckons herons
whose one–leg stance feels so akin
to the sense of almost balance
that she’s tried to cultivate,
from her bodily imprisonment,
her fear that its too late,
all the ways she’s cared for others
husband, children, many more,
the sacrificial worry that she's carried
is suddenly falling to the floor.
Just opening her eyes
making known that she is present
it’s almost more than she can muster
all her life she’s been so pleasant,
she has covered up her woundedness
like that extremity tucked under,
like the heron she’s been patient
hasn't scolded or chased wonder,
she has always done for others
in her life of soldiering on
but now her heart won’t beat in rhythm
its creating a new song,
as she begins to lift her head
shake it like she might not stay
though she’d have to let that leg down
she would have to fly away,
she would have to have a vision
of the world around that point
could she believe it without seeing
allow new waters to anoint,
to heal and offer nurture
to the parts that feel so dead
could she really call a future
from her body not her head?
If her prison is her healer
if she listens, and then flies
across rippled sunset waters
beneath a new and vibrant sky
on her own she might find beauty
and access that distant shore
could she really leave those others
and just open up the door
to her own heartbeat,
her beauty,
to the rising of her breasts,
to the sense that she is worthy
of great laughter and life’s zest?
If she wades a little deeper
and lets down that hidden limb
spreads her wings and calls her evening
cry to voices deep within,
will she find the upsurge in her lungs
and say a sweet good-bye
to the be-the-weak-one bay land
that has held her in its sigh?
She can feel her heart grow stronger
she can feel the wind now lift
her wings upon their journey
with great purpose she’ll not drift
no her own way she will find this time
let go of pleasing others
around the point
or down along the shore
its up to just her druthers.
From her lofty flying place
she looks down at waters deep
tonight she'll choose where she might land
and where tonight she’ll sleep.

Good Friday Deluge

tears stream in night rain
grieving silent sacrifice
voiced protest strangled