silver cloud fingers
swift birds fly across the wind
dawn light rising cold
Category Archives: nature
Haiku for a Monday night
blowing wind comes fast
scraping at the full moon’s light
spring is not here yet
Looking down
It was bright enough
to see dark trunks
rising out of the snow
looking down into the open
brook delta of my woods
Another night of moon
on opal white
Haiku for a Saturday sunrise
slow flurries dancing
flemish clouds framing the sun
wings beating on snow
Haiku for a Friday morning
doves feed at first light
days stretching out at each end
more snow is falling
Haiku for a feeder Tuesday
many rowdy jays
a feather hunched morning dove
hawk gliding over
Outriders
There are days I see the broad shape of earth in the clouds
arriving ahead of wind and snow, tails feathered to a point
evaporating ether like in ice clear sky
We can only guess at the cold they announce
racing battle pennants for a promised storm
The rattle of their casting bones driving us to shelter
Haiku for a stormy Monday
white pines draped in snow
fierce winds shepherd the new storm
birds will need more food
Haiku for a painted Saturday
waking up to snow
brushed on wide arm pine branches
doves waiting for sun
Reliquary
I search the winter sunset
for a sign
perched high enough
to see earth’s curve
the join of sun to inky space
almost seamless
as the night takes hold
and watch the red glow form
earth’s second crust again
a reliquary for
the day’s events
Haiku for a frozen Saturday
just as light returns
a minute feels like sunrise
the day waits for hope
Among giants
At night the woods world
rises up in vast formation
as the dogs and I
walk among giants
in the cool cocoon
of my headlamp
They are eager
oblivious of our escorts
seeing with their noses
unaware that we are not alone
Sunless, the axis of this space
has tilted on its side
there are no open reaches
to the mountain base
well known trees or brook cuts
calling birds or fresh
snow yielding fox tracks
The quiet that blankets
sight and thought
is only in my head
this place is never voiceless
even in deep winter
I follow in the wake
of wagging tails
and steaming breath
breaking trail into the dark
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Originally published in Dancer in the Mist, 2015
Revised 12/2020
Life With Horace 