Presence #72, Spring 2022
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winter birds crack seeds
& feast on blocks of suet –
my long morning is spent
polishing old pieces
of silver we rarely use
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Photo by Stauffers of Kissel Hill
Winter birds
Category Archives: bird poem
Dark morning & wild winds
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Kokako #36, Spring 2022
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It’s always a joy to have the New Zealand poetry journal, Kokako, publish some of my poetry. For their spring issue, they chose a one-line haiku and two tanka. I hope you enjoy them.
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seabirds drift on thermals—night becomes day
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~~~
cassia, lady slippers,
dutchman’s breeches, rue –
my garden becomes
the one circle of friends
I find it hard to leave
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~~~
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dark morning
filled with wild winds
that blow the birds awake
& by the crows’ swift,
and sharp reply
a red-bellied woodpecker (tanka)
Redlights, Volume 17, No. 1, January 2021
a red-bellied woodpecker
flaunts his drumming skills—
below his tree I pause
to feel his thunder,
to hear his words
Winter nights (haiku)
Presence Issue 68, November 2020
winter nights—
dreaming of blackbirds
on snow
My thanks to the editors at Presence for publishing this haiku.
Still the roses bloom…(a tanka)
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the chiming clock
begins to wind down . . .
five months of quarantine
yet still the roses bloom
and red birds sing
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This tanka was published in October, but obviously was written in early summer. We are now nine months into this pandemic. Writing is a wonderful relief as we isolate ourselves. Like so many poets, I find my writing has been changed by the pandemic.
cattails:
The Official Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, October 2020 issue
Tanka No. 3: The sudden silence
Here is the third of my three tanka published in the latest issue of Gusts no. 32, Fall/Winter 2020:
even the crows
are quiet now . . .
the sudden silence
that morning snow
brings
A Poet in Time 