The Winter Sky

The winter world is cold— and withered and old— the trees droop, still and bare, in the scathing air, clothed only in gray loss— mourning the leaves lately buried with the frost. … But the sky is soft as mother-love for children wounded of life— it is older than the cold and beautifully, gently bold.

Night Scene

It crosses the streets like a breath, a wish of dying winter. A whisk of lateral rain splattered in drops of darkened magic. And as the misty night smoak wraps the city like a cloak a single figure whistling stalks across the open intersection, collar turned up tight; as night cats watch from up above […]

Ice Advisory

Ice advisory crackles on the radio frost and ice (not snow) but ice. The air tings sharp—like rigid glass— The clouds are porcelain, the breeze a wet snap snipping by promising the things that will never fall..till now? – Ice advisory. Tonight the wood-burn stove purrs as liquid flames turn brown to grey…and cold as […]

Spring

The earth is really still the same when winter winds subside and sunshine flows while warmly blows the breath of spring again. – The earth is different every time the dead things turn to green and seeds that died now quickly ride their stems to life…again

Winter Rest

Somnolent, the blear of grassy brown and khaki bends down low before the tuneless rush of wind that lazily pursues its constant quest to touch the leaden sky that spreads abroad and wide and grey and quiet like a dream: the painted backdrop of the winging birds flying on before the smudge of ghostly sunlight […]

A Blustery Morning

The promise of winter rides the charging wind. Dark clouds pace the sky, prophesying doom. The weeping willows wail and thrash in protest. Leaves, by the thousands, jump—a frenzy in slow motion— then rush the streets with panicked footfalls to escape. Not me. I read the signs like letters from a friend, and smile, knowing […]

Autumn’s Oracle

It flits like wind: the many plated fall that haunts the hollow echoes of the trees. It sits in gloom, the ever-darkened hall of piney bowers bending in the breeze. – And far away, approaching on the air, the mountain smoke-streams: hard, and sharp as spite. Severest winter— soon to come and tear aside the […]

The Golden Leaves

The golden leaves have fallen now— cracked and brown and dying, swirling in the autumn air that slips around me, sighing. All that’s left of a youthful dream, conceived in winter’s wait and born beneath the sun’s warm gaze when all the trees create. So soft—the pink and white unfolding— blossoms on the trees that […]

Seasons: Four Haiku

Creaking with the cold: groaning, sugar-sprinkled pond. Highway for a squirrel. – Plunks of sky break glass. Tiny ringlets: small, then large. Spirals in a pond. – Water flees away! Restless waves reverberate. The tire swing sways. – Whirling with the wind, ghostly whisks of red and brown mirrored in the glass – – – […]

Medieval Advent

The frost lies hardened on the frozen ground, the trees encased in glassy slips of ice. A lonely raven calls across the field of silent white. The air is fresh and hard. I stand outside among my fields and look down at the rows of dying, stubbled corn: the husks of harvest—gone until the spring. […]