Wane

Wane

All the year's flowers came before

Blooming at their time of choice the

Winter looms, soon the blanket white

Last of all, the chrysanthemum

Autumnal herald of warm hues the

Last bouquets for the scissors

Sweet garden, I hope the freezes hesitate

The Indian summer lingers a

While, holding the fragrant moment

©️Sylphide poem 2020

(This poem is a first attempt at a golden shovel form of the Yosa Buson haiku making up the last words of the lines)

Aubergine

Aubergine

Rock-a-bye

My treasure heart

Encircled in my ribs

Glow in harmony

One in love

Eternity

Always in reach

Our vibration strings

Always connected

Never alone

Time and space powerless

To prevent it

Walls illusory

Distance meaningless

©️Sylphide poem/image 2020

Begin Blazing

The east aglow with the newest fire

Breathing in the flames I find ignition

Illuminate the paths for cognition

All nights fears set upon final pyres

Their funeral dirges played on lyres

Now begins today a coalition

Of my bright soul and these apparitions

To rise as the sun higher and higher

Every dawn a symphony swelling

The clouds dance slowly, stately with fine grace

A matching light, inside me a welling

Heart pounding, I ready for the great race

To find the darkest evils for felling

A hero's tale, bitter and sweet of taste

©️Sylphide poem 2020, image 2017

1

Summer's Taste

last of the fresh herbs

summer flavor before frost

tasting of the now

©️Sylphide poem/image 2020

Protea

Internet photo

Tones

soft topography

sunlight falls among petals

provoking full bloom

©️Sylphide poem/image 2020

13%er

Can't say I thought the debate went real well

Civil discourse is deader'n hell

Joe was sleepy, Donnie a jerk

Seems we should have some choices that work

It'll have to be done again, I can tell

©️Sylphide poem 2020

Ascendant

How might the mountain

Be hidden in mist

One day fill horizon

The next not exist

Then at midnight

By starlight is kissed

Seeming unmoved

But only rise slow

Above the clouds

Where timber won't grow

Seat of eyries

For eagles and crows

Traverse and climb 

The barren peak

Under waterfalls

Over the creeks

Until you summit

The clarity you seek

Horizons unlimited

©️Sylphide poem 2020

Seeing

     People were going into the meeting room, I was one of the last. I noticed a young man looking intently at our faces as we came through the door. He was doing a thing I thought only I did. When one encounters a person, if your look carefully at their expression as they first see your face, you can tell if they are truly happy to see you in that first millisecond before they get their pleasant face up. I realized how unfair this was, people have complex internal environments shaped by a horribly random world, with levels of coping energy varying wildly. It might have little to do with how much they like you that day, perhaps they are not relating well to anyone. 

     I'd always felt I could read people pretty well. Later as I thought of the young man, I realized it might be a skill some people develop too early, scanning the face of their stressed caregiver, trying to tell what might be coming at them next.

R Commitment

Hadn't thought of you in a while

Years really, been happy

Not like when we broke up

Like removing organs

How grown into each other

Thinking we could be one

Until we rubbed each other raw

Trying to fit in a single skin

Headed different directions

Birthing to individuals again, bloody

Newly navel'd stung by light

After years cuddle-coiled together

So harsh, the sun, the sharp air

That was no longer your skin

The half of my heart gone with you

Not beating under my ear

Two pieces, so much smaller

Trading strength for wounds

Shaped differently from then on

©️Sylphide poem 2020

Bonsai

My bonsai abutilon is 25 this year🌳🌱🌺

Abutilon

Winter Garden (1)

season changing snow

prized plants gathered for winter

unfrozen garden

©️Sylphide poem/image 2020

Cypress

cypress fronds waving

clean fragrance strong as day warms

enduring verdance

©️Sylphide poem/image 2020

Infinity

Infinity

Walk along the mobeius strip

See where you have been

The ambient mist just thick enough

To seem it's nowhere you've seen

The familiarity tugs at the soul

So you follow the moonlight's beam

To find you're walking upside down

Trying not to scream

The road will rise to meet you

When your feet are winged with dreams

The Fates think little of cowards

Courage a beacon that gleams

But remember we've all been here before

And will be, until redeemed 

©️🧿Sylphide poem 2020

Relay

Relay

Blessed are the bloom and seed

The amazing wheel of life

Vital force arise to need

Though opposing danger is rife

Even as the living thing dies

It casts its future bridge

Ahead and forward the next step lies

In the tiniest crack wedged

Will to power springs naturally

Indeed, is coded within

Living out its kismet eagerly

Thriving, multiplying to win

Why continue the cycles endlessly?

For life is motion, time a river to the sea

©️🧿Sylphide image/poem 2020

Fruit

Things I grow

More nutrients in the morning

Also good at night

After slow simmer

Nourish the joy

As Summer's lease hath all

Too short a date

©️🧿Donna Maurice image/poem 2020

Opportune

Watch

Think

Learn

Discern

Identify

Patterns

For the futures you earn

How long til ripe?

If you change when seasons turn

Sustenance innovation

Dali's giraffes burn

Grace is sacrificed

Beware for what you yearn

©️🧿Donna Maurice  poem 2020

another monday, yay!

Granted

A gift the universe

Wonderous

Mystery springs eternal

Change as easy as

Twisting the kaleidoscope

And pointing it toward light

Keeping a heart's dream

Illuminated

And the colors vivid

How can you doubt

Fate"s favour?

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem/image 2020

Elijah's Bitter Silence

Elijah's Bitter Silence

Bitter silence

The violin music not heard

The son's voice not heard

Harmonizing with his guitar

The friend's laughter never again

The gentle rhythm of his hands on 

Sore muscles, easing pain

Erased

Straight up murdered

For nothing

Also not heard

Any accountability for this

They did all

According to policy

So it's ok

I do not agree

And I am not silent

I am cacophony

Finally getting a little 

Representation

Listening for those

Wheels of justice

Creaking

In this bitter silence

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem/drawing 2020

"Any man's death diminishes me

Because I am involved in mankind

And therefore never send to know 

For whom the bell tolls

The bell tolls for thee"

John Donne from ' No Man Is An Island'

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

windmills

Horse latitudes

Escape 

Push the prophecy

Self fulfill

When all is said and done

Be balanced of valleys and hills

Cucuzza

two blossoms diverge

fading upon the same stem

having started fruit

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem,/image 2020

Baldeh

cottonwood apex

gimlet eyes tuned to movement

on prairie below

©️🧿Donna Maurice  image/poem 2020

echeveria

echeveria

sends a column of flowers

mixing up the chicks

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem/image 2020

Sangre De Christo Summer

Sangre De Christo Summer

No snow upon the Spanish Peaks

The streams begin to fade

Heat waves distort

The high chaparral

Hot rocks empty

Where lizards had laid

All seek shadows

From the blast of sun

The forge where

Skeletons are made

Save for winged raptors

Who climb thermal stairs

Looking down upon

Land scarred and flayed

In the distance

An adobe church

Its well dug deep 

In the rock of their faith

They plant trees

©️🧿Donna Maurice  poem/image 2020

Armillary

The great armillary of the cosmos
A wonder to behold
All parts whirling synchrony
All dancers, young and old
But mostly the other bodies
Are far away, bright but cold
Far-flung I,  desert rose of stars
Watching the Universe unfold

In patterns brightly ordered

Marching to an unseen goal

A mysterious culmination

Or an endless story told?

Collapsing in upon itself

Down the wyvern's hole!

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem 2020

now is the time

Spring To Summer

Now is the time
Of the blooming of thistles
And vetch
And Bowers bestrung with

Sweet pea

Of merry butterfly orgies

And the miracle of

Bumblebee flight

Soft breezes compel

A poetry of feet and core

My hands as birds

Catching the clouds

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem/image 2020

Time Enough

You have until

The day you die

To best your best

To reach new height

To top the pile

With the next guidelight

To lead by example

Not claim it as right

To shine from inside

The spark that ignites

 Agape springs perennial

Love grows day and night

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem 2020

Mama, Make A Yap!

     One of my favorite parenting memories involved my middle son when he was two and learning to speak. I was sitting on the porch and the sons had friends over. He came running at me all smiles, wanting a full-wrap hug.

     "Make a Yap, Mama!'  He meant ' lap' because he wanted to be completely enfolded in the love he knew was there for him. I happily complied and was deeply nourished also.💗

Prairie Spring

.                        

                            kiss of the sun blooms

                            to the joy of moths and bees

                            a special few days

©️🧿Donna Maurice poem/image 2020

                          

Stratospheric

Kite the waves of wind

Sharp wings slicing gales

Gravity's laws recind

Fly beyond the pale

The greater the height

The broader the view

To climb is to fight

For what's seen by few

The air is cleaner

All barriers below

Senses are keener

No stopping the flow

Ecstasy in freedom's rush

When your wingtips

On God's face brush

©️Sylphide poem/2020

There Is Only Now

There is only now

As it has always been

And will ever be

To your light I bow

Though hidden, unseen

No secret to me

Paint it over again

Constancy falls in shape

Colors liquidly form

Sharpened in lens

Fantastic dreamscape

Unusual is the norm

Things happen in time

Queerer than we suppose

Or will ever know

Whirling life, sublime

Thorns protect the rose

But scented breezes blow

©️🧿Kiku Koibito poem/image 2020

,

The Shortening of Salad Days

The Shortening of Salad Days

Spring comes earlier

Summer heat too

Wilting

The storms are fiercer

But we're not made of sugar

Our sustenance is not so tough

Requiring diligent protection

And forethought

For Everyone

To make it out alive

And continue

Our young must mature early

And not wilt

Not surprised at the gale's power

But master all waters

Like life's blood

©️🧿Kiku Koibito poem/image 2020

Gifts Of Dreams And Consciousness

Gifts Of Dreams And Consciousness

This day is given again clarion'd

With all fires fanfare aloft display

Private symphony, solitarian

Such majesty illuminates the way

Bright and faint, the sheltering stars recede

To sparkle another's now falling night

A million prescient dreams to breed

Of flying free ahead of time, foresight

If there is only now, why then look up?

Anticipation a wasted effort

No knowing the future, young buttercup

Just be ready to adapt sans terror

Rejoice in the gift of complexity

Ever it edifies  humanity

©️🧿Kiku Koibito image and poem 2020

tiny spiders balled

surviving the last chill nights
until summer warms





©Kiku Koibito 2020

Mutant Iris

Unlike Van Gogh's Irises 

This one has the same color

As the others

The difference is not that striking

But there is something extra

Something most won't notice

Sets it apart

Changes the line forever

©Kiku Koibito  image/poem 2020

Mazel Tov!

Solbourne

An angel folds her wings

So falls into the dawn

To give her glowing to the day

Give all the stars to the sun

Who comes up like bright victory

Not stolen from the sky but won

Gloriously heralded
Night's dark spells undone
Luminous aurora shines
Cold shadows on the run
Endless cycles start again
In warmth and light begun
A sailing moon in rosy clouds
This day won't be outrun





©Kiku Koibito poem/image February 2020

beginnings  glowing
dawn of this day luminous
roseate path light










©Kiku Koibito haiku & image