three crab-apple sisters
standing close together
lichen on their dead branches
and on their live ones
tiny yellow fruit
Halfway to Imbolc Square Haiku
what a difference
an extra hour of sun
creates within
I Met Berserk (After Wallace Stevens)
Through the rain
And the lights
I met myself
I met berserk
On the traffic island between fifth and main
“you have so much left to learn” he told me,
Taking hold of the scruff of my neck
And shaking
And shaking
[This is a stub. It echoes three poems: one that I wrote in high school, which was inspired “Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks,” by Wallace Stevens; and also The Great Figure, by William Carlos Williams]
November Haiku
the mind is silent
sun slants into afternoon
the air, almost warm
bare branches tracing
against a cloudless, pale sky
sun sets them glowing
September is the Gentlest Month Haiku
on Boston Common
sun shines the same on us all:
squirrels, humans, water
Youthful Heart Haiku
in the dappled shade
black and white kitty finds joy
chasing her own tail
Wild Turkeys Haiku
three turkeys forage
along the side of the road
on my way to work
Through the Gates, in July, Something Different
you step through three gates of trees
expecting to see something different
and you always do
today, a turkey
almost to the end of the boardwalk
through the swamp, just before
a stream-bed that’s mostly mud
with the one big stone you’ve hopped
a thousand times
where you can glimpse
one of the huge houses
whose owners have been building again
you stop long enough to regard him
and he calls to you, or to
a well-hidden mate, you can’t determine
his gobble uniquely his
and nothing really like
the english word we made for it
Silence, Lost Sisters, Escape
seeking emptiness
and learning not to fear it
we lost our sisters in the forest
now they gather in the back,
their voices shrill and loud
they don’t seem to have aged
but we have
when did we trade the forest
for this dry museum?
where is the way out?
must we exit through the gift shop
or is there another doorway
we have yet to find?
Fire and the Love Eye
fire destroys everything in its path
transforms it to ash
the love eye transforms
without destroying