Wednesday Poems
(Image: photograph, hellebore)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This past week has been Victoria’s annual flower count – that time of year when
those of us lucky enough to live on the south coast of BC boast about our early spring.
So many blossoms, though, how can we resist – snowdrops, hellebores, daffodils,
camelias, cherry blossoms and more brighten our days. Still, so many other parts of the
country remain snowbound, or are waiting for the piles of ploughed snow to melt.
So this week, I’ve chosen a kind of cross-country piece for my Wednesday Poem –
Cedar Cottage Suite, the title poem from my 2010 chapbook (Leaf Press). This haiku
sequence starts with flowers, but … ends with snow. Oh – and this time, in addition to a
photograph or painting to accompany my weekly post, I’ve included a link to my
YouTube video, if you want to hear me read a few of the haiku.
Cedar Cottage Suite
1.
Shaking out folds
from sheets dried on the line –
petals, too!
*
Wind last night;
I wake to my neighbour sweeping
pink debris
2.
Some kind of plastic
trash in the north lagoon
reflecting sunlight
*
Two mallards paddle
in and around thick rushes –
where is their nest?
3.
Seed husks cling
to new leaves, leggy
stems wobble
*
Under lush
magnolias, a sleeping bag
rolls over
4.
Beside the path
heron walks away from me
on tiptoe
*
What a dive!
An osprey catches dinner –
who weeps for the fish?
5.
High in the cypress
a flicker bursts out laughing
while I walk to work
*
That dragonfly
keeps changing lanes: dangerous
driver
6.
Voting day –
old crow dives, leaps gently
off my head
*
Sudden storm: even
crows wake up shrugging flakes
off their shoulders
7.
First snow: someone placed
the orange ladder against
that tree again
*
Late afternoon –
shadows slide off benches
abandoned to snow
(Cedar Cottage is the name of the east end Vancouver neighbourhood that includes
Trout Lake in John Hendry park. We lived there for 25 years before moving to Pender).