Hay(na)ku  
Based on the haiku form, these three line poems are either 3/2/1 or 1/2/3 words per each line.

gray clouds hang
heat drained 
relief!

hush
early morning quiet
squirrels still asleep

sun hidden behind
thick clouds
Reprieve

Trash Bandit 

Bands on his tail
give the bandit away
then the face mask
black against white
The clever marauder,
where is his cape?
He doesn’t lie
or bluff, just does
what he’s shaped for
Those clever little hands

You want to boot him
or spit when you see
trash strewn all over
the driveway

The ruckus jolted
you awake, steel shield
banging on the ground— 
you, sleeping, sweating
on the screened-in porch
during summer dog days

Not This Time
Ekphrastic poem after “Angling the Night” by Akira Kusaka

It could be the end
the sky is falling
I dress in my best suit
dust my fine bowler hat
place a chair in the rowboat
just so
and fish for fallen beauty
hook the moon before it sinks
then her companions    the stars 
No catch and release
not this time
I must save the sky 
from drowning

Frog Singing at the Pink Moon 
(a cento composed of lines from Mary Oliver)

Plummet to your knees
your soul rises from your bones
for the tribes are trilling
until song is everywhere
You see through their eyes
wear their webbed fingers
sparkling like hot wires
their music driving
through your own throat
called water, called Spring

The poems for the next thirty days are written from prompts from Ellen Rowland's class.
You can find her on Substack. She's inventive, creative, and stretches us to work with different forms we've never heard of.

Just Before Green  

Where I live
just before green 
rides the early autumn,
gold summer grasses 
went parched 
then drab
soil loosens to dust
ground holds its breath
hills wait out the sky
fields begging for rain

when finally, it comes
the land, slaking
a prayer calling
more!  more!

Caravan of Poets

When I rise in the dark
rubbing my eyes, trundle
to my computer
slip on my heated vest
I sense you, too
awake in night’s deep, 
settling in
a daily ritual

Because there is
no distance, no time
we write together
in communion

How to Keep Your Heart Open in Hell —Ram Dass

cluster bombs lobbed— 
democracy fractured
85 degrees, Sonoma County
in March     weeks, no rain
obvious, this changing climate 
cruelty and rudeness unleashed
Pandora threw up her hands
left us to stew
boxed in our own undoing

our clearest assignment
DON’T GIVE IN
be endlessly kind, even
when standing your ground

no small thing

It’s no small thing,
love— 
warmth of a hug
holding another’s gaze
that clearing
meeting them here
now      in this, 
the only moment
we have
It’s no small thing

Rushing Days 
Time doesn’t belong to us. —Caroline Kennedy

The urge to frame time,
stretch it the way I want
We don’t have agency

The chance to question,
notice, create 
A gift, unbounded
in its wonder

Most people want
to get through this 
then that
I prefer days to linger
minutes taking hours
a week into a month
Time to dawdle, loiter— 
mind drifting through words
brushes playing with paint

When you find me gone
know that I am everywhere
cloud, blood, bird, and heart

Lost It

Slept through the night
missed my window
so I work now, when
the world is revving

At least it’s Sunday, a measure
of quiet      sleepyheads
trudging toward church 

That favored hour
gone, nothing to salvage
If only
I could call it back

Pre-Dawn

Dog woke me at five
standing nearby
peeping to go out

Early morning slog
find glasses, shoes, coat
it’s chilly out there

Leash means business
not play     She squats
her palpable relief
Back inside she heads
straight to bed     circles
flops, curls, moans
a bundle
of paws and tail
but I lie awake
absorbed in worry—
not a dog

Windfresh

Whipping in the chill 
sunshine    stiff
and windfresh, the sheets
are hard to catch
I’m too short
to reach the pins, 
but help Anna find
the corners, fold and feed
into the rollers
the mangle machine

Now the scent of hot
almost scorch rises
in the steam
the sheets unfurl
Incense of home

Hedge Witch 

Brewing tinctures
and salves
savoring the scent
ties me to sisters
way back     herbalists,
wise women working 
as solitaries      feared 
or respected depending 
on locale and the times

Who knows if they’re true
I have flashes
of the burning times
devoted to my craft
sought after by the sick
hunted by the hidebound,
skin taut     listening for danger
alive to the undertow

Rarity 

Myriad expressions
20 quadrillion ants
microbes beyond count

Humans—not so numerous
yet far more hazardous
arrogance may finish us

This life, a rare opportunity
Simple goodwill passed
from person to person
could heal us
We’d better start now

Inside

Breeze on my face
or lilt of a phrase
that inviting trace
curving just so carries
me in— 
a light-filled place

Creaky

Waking up, a twinge 
of old age 
that ramshackle home

loved and tended
but wind-scoured 
beaten
and wearing out still

Writ this way 
the order of things

Becoming

There I am  
across the table from myself
unformed
I offer her warm soup
in this cold dawn, new moon 
altar to our beginning

We sit in quiet 
listening for first light

the clock
These hands are churches that worship the world
—Naomi Shihab Nye

These hands that pat, knead
stroke, clasp pen and brush
want to praise    they do
and will
The doomsday clock
now at 85 seconds 
from midnight necessitates, too

We need slow its pace, then
set it back    two minutes 
an hour, a year
That takes collaboration
and care

Glance down
see sacred hands
make miracles

What now? 

With war raging
fear is leviathan
lurking, hovering
it pounces, steals 
peace, invades sleep
my anguish 
for the innocents
we are slaughtering

An ancient story
as old as homo sapiens
our primal flaw
ferocity toward
our own kind