Crickets And Crows

    After a three year hiatus (except for one poem), I'm now resuming this blog. I'll be sharing a selection of poems written over the past few years, mostly in chronological order, as well as an occasional drawing. Most of the poems and drawings will be accompanied by a brief prose commentary. Here we go!

EARLY MORNING WALK

dawn breaking

hardly another soul about

just a cat crouching in the grass

*

not a car coming

not a truck going

no need for the traffic light

*

perched on the rim

of the trash container

still as sculpture--a hawk!

*

these homeless sleeping

small islands huddled

on the slopes of the park

*

even before sunrise

this dancing fountain

celebrates the new day!

*

tiny, reddish, so fast!

whatever it was

bolted into the bushes!

*

sun coming up

in the east, moon

going down in the west

*

dew-covered lawn

the tip of every grass blade

catches fire!

*

green lichen grows

such intricate patterns

on the dead branch

*

bathing in a puddle

feathers fluffed out

that robin looks happy!

*

big fat toadstool

you've found the perfect spot

hidden in the damp shade

*

from the vanishing

pockets of darkness

crickets keep singing

***

     I've long loved Japanese Haiku, and every now and then I write them, usually in a single poem sequence, as here. I adhere to the brief, traditional 3-line format, but I don't worry about a rigid, 17-syllable count for each poem. After all, these are American Haiku. During my walk, I'd been struck by so many vivid moments! After I got home I quickly jotted them down. Later, when I sought to render my experience in verse, Haiku seemed the ideal form, as individual pearls on a strand all combine to create a glowing necklace.

                                  DAWN FLIGHT

these crows roosted restlessly above the city streets last night

now they teeter on the topmost branches of a towering tree

then plunge into the sky again--caw-cawing to wake the dead--

shadows dwindling toward a faint blood smear on the horizon

one part of the man watching at the window flies with them

riding the winds to raid and plunder farm fields far to the east

black and glittering his crow's eye! sharp and jabbing his beak!

dark and wild his fierce heart drumming in its tiny cage of ribs!

                                            ***

     The crow is my totem animal, and as a poet I feel a shaman's identification with it. But I think we all have a much greater affinity with nature than we're usually aware of. We need to get out of our heads more, and into our hearts and guts. That's where the other creatures live, and until we can join them there, we'll always be consuming and destroying their only world, and ours.