This poem came about by the confluence of two completely different factors. 

`           One, obviously, was finding dying sparrow on the concrete at the entry to my garage.

            The second was an article in The Conversation Canada, about journaling. If you’re not sure what to write, the article suggested (I’m paraphrasing) list what you can note from your senses. Five things you see; four things you hear; three things you touch; two things you smell; one thing you taste. 

            I tried that exercise while thinking about the bird whose body I had just moved into my garbage can, and suddenly they started forming a poem. So here it is – in part...

...

I pick it up, a mortal morsel cupped in my hands.

It makes no effort to flap, to fly.

It rests on my skin, light as a snowflake,

soft as a lover’s touch. 

I move it to a shady spot, where the day’s heat 

bears down on it less heavily. 

The bright beads of its eyes flick towards me.

Then close. 

This poem started with an unusually early snowfall. I’ll tell you the rest of the story after you read the poem. 

Snow falls softly on cedars; 

fat white flakes sift down, pile up; 

branches bend, protest in pain; 

white cones burden bunched berries; 

autumn grass falls flat below 

an ermine cloak;  drifting specks 

draw a veil across distance.  

At the end of Elvis Presley’s concerts, the venue’s management typically announced, “Elvis has left the building.” The phrase seemed appropriate in a different context. 

one bag of garbage 
one load of laundry
one plate on the table
one side of bed unrumpled
one datebook to compare
one has lost its other
one of us has left this place

My wife Joan has been handling the gradual decline of her life with astonishing composure. But occasionally, the veneer cracks, and I realize how fragile she is, physically and emotionally. I try to imagine myself into her experience, and can’t – inevitably, I drift off into my story, not hers.

            So as once before, I’ve chosen the ruthless structure of classical haiku – three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables – to enforce some discipline on my monkey mind. 

Walking on water

ice fractures under my feet

fall into nothing

n these months, as 12 years of Joan’s chronic leukemia move towards their inevitable conclusion, I have found it – as you may imagine – difficult to write poetry of any kind. And yet I feel that it is somehow important for me to try. 

            Something about the sheer sparseness of the haiku formula appealed to me: three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. The format leaves no room for maudlin meandering. I wrote about a dozen of them; after consulting with a pair of friends, four remain. 

tides suck life away

anemones scrunch in pain

rocks rise wet with tears