Something Black and Red

Walking to work

Covering my ears as always

Past the scream and grind

Of savage machines

My feet deep in heavy snow.

Suddenly I saw:

By the construction site sat

Balanced on the edge of a curb

Something black and red

Under a thick layer of ice

Immune to the December sun.

In those days I didn't know

what a scarlet tanager 

looked like dead

or sounded alive.

Funeral

Long ago at your old friend's funeral
Outside through a soft snow flurry I saw
Your flawlessly fine face faintly aglow
Your arms full of the fairest fresh flowers
Your gloved fists and your gorgeous gloomy eyes
Braving the ghoulish cold getting ready
To bury a very scary fairy
Tale of love that's wild and willful and wrong
This wilted willow has wasted away
For too long so here I watch you and wait

In the Snow

In the spring why
must we die?
I think
we were made
out of snow.
Moments preserved
in every flake
of every mold.

Memories melt.
Insensitive sun.
In the slush
sinking....Who's who
in the ocean?
I'm palpable me
A frozen smile
in the snow.

Truth Is the Lollipop

They toddle; how they fall!
It snows; in Vancouver.
Space tightens; times too slow.
Grownups grimace; kids glow.
I've heard myself titter.
But why could I not stop?
Freedom is a tyrant
for the hungry thinker.
Seeking manna I’ve failed
to read the child’s answer:
Truth is the lollipop.
Recall when you were small
and when a severe hail
meant hard candy for all?
The sun is out, the snow
at last started to thaw.
This time I do not think.
Could be the little things.

Wait

Wait for it

Wait for it

Wait

The snow

Will melt

If you

Would Wait

Four Haiku

#1
Seeking the famed sun,
fell off a fifty-foot cliff.
Rain-scented sandstone.

#2
My eyes turn cloudy
Our aging tree in the sun
A sour apple drops


#3
Rats chase each other
One stops and looks back at me
Black eyes in the snow


#4
Crunch of gold and flame.
Do not walk on dying leaves!
Autumn wind circles.

Last Fall

Leaves of saffron and marigold
mingled with canary and rose,
some shattered, some frozen
within the mud and early snow.

The scent of chilly air and soil,
the sound of familiar voices
rising up at once to a roar,
the feel of gloved fingers below,
all fused becoming something new
that grew more and more distant,
but she enjoyed her last fall; every hue.

Compassion

Compassion is not time
that passes without looking back
Or confused air
once a breeze and then the storm
It pours
not as water that freezes in the cold
It's not the sun when concealed
by darkness of a mindless cloud
Compassion does not cower
like fire in the downpour
Is not seduced by alluring words
Will not crumble beneath untold
unfelt sufferings of the world
Compassion can never be known
but from the experience of breath
through the revived reborn field
of heart that softly beats—
despite the ravages of time
howls of dolor
despite springs of agony still unhealed
and shattered memories that keep order
as fearful guards blocking the roads
despite the snoring snow-covered wolves
and homeless feelings running for cover—
having felt an openness and softened care
as if the city of heart is much much bigger
as if it's a room that welcomes and can hold
that and the breath and has room to shed a tear
as if the heart is vaster and warmer and wiser
beneath the damage and the falling snow
as if the heart is patient enough to wait
for blossoming spring and fruits of summer
But these are only words! 
Who could really know
why this time the breath had beamed with joy
returning all content
up to the mind from there

Mold

Mold on the lime to 
the moribund butterfly:
Blossoming snowflake.