Waiting for Winter

I say it at the start of every season: I love this time of year with the changes taking place. What it does to place seems so different than what it was for months. Oh, sweet review of 12 months past.

Waiting for Winter

Across the field I see hills mature past
Full autumn show
Ready for snow cover
And calling
For their winter’s sleep.
I too wait with excited expectancy.
Spring aged to summer, fall so full in gold and rich
In its family of reds
And now waiting for winter
Is bold.
Like the oak, leafless in its form
And strong.
Love the blessings
Of this year.
And now waiting
For hard frost and first snow
In this time of reverie.

Battles Past

It'll be a new picture after first snow cover. But now: a Montana memory.
Or maybe North Dakota. Last week's road trip ended on Sunday, and a visit to a long, narrow and surreal place is recalled--in fact and imagination.
Driving is an altered state, and I see in new ways.

Battles Past

Stark beauty in this lone, dead tree
When fall of three or five years past
Released last leaves of summer's dream.
Now shadow cast in spindle ribs
Its trunk still bold yet barren of its armor coat
White ghost, now free
From bark of battles lost
And littered at its feet
Past robes are shed and show
In each noon light.
This spirit of ancient arbor stands
On field of reverie.
Lone, dead tree recalls
All autumn-colored dreams
In some ten thousand scattered seeds.

Chico & Haun

This and the previous poem are from last week's trip to Montana.

This morning of days
Awake with tea, we visit
With Jonathon's cats

(Kitty haiku)


Chico is the black one. Haun is almost human.

Winter Score

As I sat in the parking lot of St. Vincent Hospital I was inspired by a crow. Pondering its lonely call, I wrote:

Crow knows the score in barren oak
Repeats the toll of winter
Sunshine
White cloud
Autumn leaves have fallen
Crow knows the score of winter winds
Snowflakes not yet drifting