Now to clarify

Some things are to be believed

But not understood

 without tears or balm

she waits for the pain to stop

bravely - tenderly

 What would this day be

Without the weightless light

Of auspicious spring

 will we be sorry

when we cannot see the stars

hooded by our lights

Laden trees of May 

Surprised by a sudden gust

Blossoms on the lawn

 With winter's work done

Tender leaves and limbs sunward

Spring's green gratitude

 She is unequal

Composed of contradiction

And amply awry

Measuring your life

You may as well count the stars

While they spin above 

The garden table

Well set with spring's bright banquet

Where eager bees dine

 Like a harnessed horse

He pulls his story behind

Down a rutted road

 Of self-confidence

Count more for intuition

Than calculation

 If you need to weep

Covering your face won't help

Cry up to the sky

 After all is said

Somewhere between doubt and hope

 Waits satisfaction

Rivers, tempests, seas 

Where might this water have been?

In tears of laughter?

 In time of the nones

Shall we together accept

This is what we have

 This little language

Says nothing of love's design

Or but beauty's cause

At the horizon

Before sunset you will see

The tip of my sail

 All of nature born

Are common and arisen

From a Mother's seed

 Yes, this place seems right

Where I choose to take some rest 

Come, sit here with me

Women in red robes

Bring water from the river

Life in the balance

 How far can you see?

Over forests, mountains, seas?

Or beyond yourself?

Today is liquid

Whithersoever it flows

Readily I float

 Quivering - breathless

Their love inexpressible

They lie heart to heart

 Fleeting fulfillment

You don’t know when it’s enough

Until it’s too much

 I will not know sin

Accede to heaven's promise

Or dread hell's portents

Got to get on down

To Clarksdale, Mississippi

Crossroads of the blues

Immeasurable 

Flowers ought be multitudes

 Vast fields or alone

I need to tell you 

About the shape that I'm in

Comfortably round

 I still have pieces

Of the places we have been

Safely in my heart

When spring first kissed me

Its lips pursed with honey-dew

Therefrom, sweet increase!

 May I not forget

The lesson of the seasons

Never born enough

April awakens

Tosses the sheet of winter

Rising with a yawn

Not truly bygone

But I wish I could recall

The things that I know

 Forsooth - said the bard

If you ask me no questions

I'll tell you no lies

Barely visible

Where the blue meets feeding air

The flame burns hottest

A bug's fleeting life

Just now made even shorter

Splat! On the windshield

Nothing I have heard

Prepared me for the lyrics

Of the warbler’s song

To A Mockingbird

You uncomely fowl

How boldly you fill the air

With songs of others

 

 In my heart of hearts

All that glisters is not gold

Neither here nor there

On Shakespeare's Birthday

 This haiku 

is made with well-known phrases from his plays.

 At the gate of day

The dog's nose is cold and wet

Eager for the field 

 Emily Dickinson

She visits briefly

As a honeybee at bloom

O'erspread with pollen

 Privilege of hawks

To sail superior skies

And see us reduced

 Dashing cardinal

A crimson blaze of glamor

Adorns the mesquite

 When entirely spring

The San Pedro courses north

Life-stream for migrants

 Reveries flicker

Like hummingbirds at blossoms

Then vanish forthwith

 A slave to beauty

I'm indentured to forests

Mastered by the trees

 Hear the quail's report

From the sheltering thicket

The eggs are moving!

The redoubt of faith

Firmly buttressed with grace

Besieged by questions

 I will go ahead

To light a fire in the dusk

So you can find me

 The outskirts of town

Cotton fields to the river

Summer bakes their backs

Dance to juke joint blues

Shake what your momma gave ya

Jump jive and boogie

 The first daffodils

Conducted by April sun

Raise their trumpet heads

 Carve from this something

An instant that might escape

However the day

Of the pathless seas

There's no sextant suitable

For this boundless cruise

 It's hard to allow

The universe is empty

But for some huge specks

 The choir of birds

Perched in these cathedral trees

Carols of April

 All my time is free

It is not to be purchased

Or properly earned

 Most of my problems

Look better on a good walk

Not solved, but smaller

 A proof of beauty

Fragility among thorns

Hedgehog cactus blooms

 All said, I have learned

It's less about the story

Than how it is told

 April 4, 1968

One hateful bullet

Clarion voice assaulted

Still, it reaches us

 Fox "News"

The pathetic truth

Credibility is lost

When it fails to lie

How tardy the life 

That counts the tramp of minutes

And dreads being late

 This the last haiku

From an exhausted writer

On April Fools Day!

Sagas of our guns

Written in blood of children

What right makes this right?

Of men and women

Two equal to the same one

Are themselves equal

No times left behind

They follow us like shadows

Even in the night

Remains of the past

Float like dust in the sunlight

Settling on dreams

 When we were youthful

Unbounded and without cares

The once time was now

 Mississippi night

They are camped outside of town

The kids are hungry

 It's hard to recall

When I discovered numbers

Or who thought I should

 How fragile this dream

Like dew on the spider’s web

Dissolved with the sun

 I've not known hunger

Like the hawk and honey bee

Or thirst like the seed

In the arroyo

Where the desert mallow grows

Gift of winter rains

 From the brittlebush

The evening song of a quail

Attending its nest

 The last of winter

His hair thin and trousers loose

He waits for the day

 I was taught somewhere

Faith bears more consequences

Than humble presence

 A bee's luxury

The liquor of orange blossoms

Spring's sweet indulgence

 victor or vanquished

those returning from a war

bring monsters with them

For a deep red rose

Is the cost of its beauty

To be discovered

 Of all animals

Only humans seek revenge

Others just survive

 The desert has its turn

To wear harlequin attire

And sway to spring's song

 

               

Today the poppies bloom

                                   Sun-faced gems of the desert

Brief but brilliant

 The first thing I knew

Before I learned all these words

Was my mother's love

 Able mockingbird

Reminds the morning to wake

In voluble songs

 Subnivean mouse

Supposing what April brings

Sleeps in its warm cell 

They wait equably

At sunlight's first touch they sing

Glory O' Glory!

 History's question

Is what we tell of the past

That which we desire?

 She lived in brackets

[a phrase inside a sentence]

Helpful but needless

 A penetrant sun

 Lightens tadpoles and algae

Where the catfish feed

 It returned today

With its protean carols

Spring's first mockingbird

Do not seek so far

Inquire of the nearest gnat

It will understand

Resplendent jewel

Made radiant by noon's light

Hovers at a bloom

 There is no evil

In how nature treats itself

But for humankind

 The cup of this month

O'erbrimming with vernal dew

And the orchard's balm

There is only this

In which every thing is born

Entire and boundless

 What remains of grief

Is perched on his anxious heart

Like a hungry crow

 As I come to you

Gone is my long youthful stride

But still with purpose

 I'm on a dirt road

Twenty miles outside of town

Following the sun

Savory and tart

Love is a rich concoction 

With no recipe

 When the fire has burned

And the ashes have been strewn

What of works and words?

 If gods are doubtless

They must abound everywhere

None greater or less

 There's no map for this

But the arc of the heavens

To show you a way

Swathed in guiltless dreams

It sleeps in a star-lit crib

Blue-veined and most hale

 This nest has survived

The gale of winter's timbre

Still empty - it waits

 My heart's a pilgrim

(on a passage never tread)

Each step is the first

Songs and thunder drums

Hoops become birds, frogs. and snakes

Totemic dances 

This pale borrowed light

Bathes her with milky luster

                                        Moonglow in her eyes                                         

 I wondered today

When will mockingbirds next sing

And quail make their nests

 In this pearly bud

I see a verse unwritten

 Of spring, I presume

 They yearn for the truth

When certainly there is none

So feeds the desire

They were brief and bright

I was besotted by both

A bird and rainbow

 They are what they are

Tedious tautologies

Finished in the end

 Modern volcanoes

Billions belch their toxic breath

The sixth extinction?

With no intention

Calmness without reference

Essence with no name

 How agile is youth

That twirls to life's wondrous songs

And leaps with such grace

 Silence cuts deepest

In the flesh of confidence

No wound bleeds more doubt

 Which seeds will soon bud?

What hand cast those favored?

Fortune or effect?

What she said to him

Just came out - no harm was meant

Until he heard it

 It is so patient

And I never disappoint

The garden each day

 High home for a clutch

Safehold in a saguaro

For the cactus wren

 The gnawing question

Why would one who knows a fork

Use chopsticks instead?

For Our Son's Birthday

 On this winter day

A generation was born

And family formed

 Mother always said

Breakfast is most important

I preferred dessert

Who wants to explain

When the wind was born

Or where thunder goes 

 Pseudo George Santos

Who puts the con in congress

There's no lie too large

How modest is rice

Graceful grass heavy with seeds

The grain of the world

 A current so swift

It will surely reach the sea

All is swept downstream

Consecutively

Measuring their lives in steps

They keep following

 

 You once danced with him

You were young - too long ago

But he knows the song

 Strengths can be weakness 

Virtues on which we rely

Are bane in surfeit

 O the difference

Could souls be seen more surely

Than the binding flesh

 The blues are the roots

Of music's ancestral tree

All the rest is fruit

Waiting for respect

 They are camped at the border

Where will their lives start?

 Shimmy and shake it

Get over to the juke joint

Dance your cares away

 I won some - lost some

Some that I can't remember

Few that I regret

The animals know

Our thankless dominium

Is a delusion

Culture must be mad

To misconstrue fear with truth 

Destruction with might

 Listen to the woods

Carefully though they whisper

They have tales to tell

 I'm built for comfort

I like to take it easy

I'm not built for speed

 I would like to meet

The child that gave me this life

Just once, to thank him

 We've been here before

Where end is the beginning

We know this story

 She comes home at dawn

Wrinkled and smelling of night

Will the house be locked

 A hawk flies over

A mouse dangling in its clutch

Pigeons flee in fear

Cookin' a picnic

Yeah, we gonna jump awhile

To the fife and drums

Otha Turner was one of the great Mississippi cane fife players. The attached link will give you a taste of his life and music.

https://vimeo.com/158052541

 My best shirt is old

Faded and frayed - it knows me

Like a trusted friend

 On a well-thumbed page

A verse that is often read

But seldom heeded

Full many a bloom

Consecrated by the bees

Blush from the blessing

 They slept on the floor

Underneath the line of fire

Sheltered by terror

 A wave needs no name

Gathering - rolling - plunging

Like credence in time

A premonition 

Of tempests beyond the tides

From the ocean's heart

 Hungered hummingbird

Hovers at every color

It's always athirst

They're all about me

Interminable stories

None is about me

Words in the forest

Pathetic jurisdiction 

Nature shan't be split

 

Don't accept slander

Whence you do not seek counsel

Defer to your heart

It is so tempting

A pie on the windowsill

Almost cool enough

 With her chariot

Did Eos spread the new day

 How the heavens blushed

 2022

A year of rage and relief

Hopeful confusion

 Even the mountains

Shouldered with forests and snow

Will wash to the seas

 After the fury

Of the night's delerium

The snow now quiet

 Light we do not see

Voices that we could not hear

Thoughts we will not know

 My favorite songs

Birds - wind - thunder - coyotes

And water falling

Comfort of winter

With its vast sunlit snowfields

Where spring sleeps beneath

Gifts of December

Iciles on the willow 

Yuletime's welcome hearth

 A tree not chosen

Stands alone on Christmas eve

Glorious with snow

Dogs have holidays

When they can eat and relax

Perpetually 

 A foolish question

Consisting of just five words

When will you grow up?

When we conceived time

To measure the infinite

Did nature notice

 Who knows what there is?

What if it's all make-believe?

Precarious tales 

 

These precious children 

Fragile and invincible

Hope for tomorrow

The season's spirit

Gingerbread trimmed with cheer

Frosted with delight

 A holiday tree

Bedecked with sparkling snow

Deep amid the woods

Aspens assembled

Barely white with winter's frost

Shudder in the wind

 If you should wonder

Close your eyes and look at me

I am always here

 To know nature's mein

Venture out and seek nothing

Listen with your heart

 Back to the dugout

He glances at the pitcher

Who just struck him out

 In the lowest place

Where raindrops form a puddle

The birds come to drink

 

From a bee

I'm lost in this bloom

Where the sweetest nectar brews

I'm found in this bloom

 A floating full moon

Perhaps a balloon escaped

From a child's bouquet

In noon's effulgence

The dragonfly's blue dazzle

Untranslatable

 What is worth it all

Favor, fixtures and fortune

Or maybe a cloud

 This place is not ours

Its immanence surpasses

The end of our mind

 Little can be said

Or unsaid, ironically

About a good joke

 When tired of the noise

She tucked between the pages

Of the next good book

There goes wee Marie

Uplifted with blue balloons

Filled with sheer delight

 For each wax a wane

All contradictions resolved

The stars glow at noon

 When the sun is low 

Pebbles cast long shadows

And seem like mountains

 Stones tossed in the pond

Bubbles rise to the surface

Minnows swim to them

 Winter is now here

What was once blooming and ripe

Now dry and brittle

 There've been larger days

When more was gained or forfeit

But none more peaceful

 A thin line of life

Betrodden on the hillside

By javelinas

 When the night takes me

May it be a moonless sky

Lit by trembling stars

 Woke up this mornin'

Blues is about what is left

After what is lost

 Hear the crickets sing

When the night is warm and close

And birds are quiet

 Thanks is not enough

Nor the expression of love

For family's grace

Leave no day unclaimed

Or memory forsaken

Now bestows the past

None of us will know

Creatures that lived in the shells

Covered by the tides

He held to the hope

Like a limpet clinging to a rock

Crashed by waves of doubt

I have to wonder

Who can thrive without the wild

Or dance with no song 

 The sun in autumn

Barely kisses November

Sending a warm chill

Without objection

Night concedes to a new dawn

And waits 'til twilight

 Hear November sing

The wind through Ponderosas

Whirring a cold song

I join great spaces

The mountains and their forests

I am kin with them

 Political lines

Separate people and lands

Invisible walls

 For Willie

Making you a wish

As glad as flowers for sun

 Rejoice this birthday!

 I'm too far away

I cannot smell the forest

Or taste the thin air

What savvy they have

The capacity of dogs

To tell without words

 All darkness in there

Without a door or window

One way to get out

The priceless secret

Your life's inscrutable span

Cannot be appraised

 The sign is cardboard

She searches for eye contact

Anything will help

 Slim Jimmy Walker

Singin' blues about last night

Hopin' she'll come home

 A blood moon rises

Like a ruddy-faced farmer

Watching over crops

 A purple button

Left by a crow on the rail

As thanks for some corn

 There's a perception

That all is solid and clear

Then awakening

 Rage has two faces

 The haughty simper of pride

And greed's  joyless scowl

 Agreeable quail

Nod as they scurry away

Swift and certainly

There is a thin veil

Between belief and trueness

That's easily torn

Dia de los Muertos

Remnants in all folk

Auspices of those before

Why we praise this day

 A note from a wasp:

It's winter and I will die

The queen has the eggs

Stingy Jack the knave

Enjoined from heaven and hell

Roams with a lantern

A skrik in the night

Is it a ghost or goblin?

Horripilation!

almost futilely

waves throw themselves on the shore

unrelentingly

 Atop the back wall

Like faithful to a service

Quail in procession

 Unembarrassed cat

Indifferent to my gaze

Spreads out on his back

 She hangs by a string

On the verge of touching him

Does she dare let go? 

 

An old length of twine

(that once fastened a package)

Now in a lark's nest

Lashed by autumn gales

The pines discharge dry needles

Undressed but dauntless

  The leaves once brittle

Now moldered beneath the snow

Will nourish in spring

 Heed the tempest sky

That quakes the trees to their roots

First hint of winter

 Machines work for us

Until they are too useful

Then we work for them