Haibun Monday: Owls

Today the theme for Haibun Monday is owls. Victoria is hosting the Pub with this lovely winter kigo for haiku. A haibun is brief true prose ending with a haiku – haiku must have a seasonal word to be a haiku. Come visit us to read these haibun about owls. the Japanese word for snowy owl is fukaroo. This is also being posted at Real Toads Tuesday Platform.

Owls at night
I sit on the steps of our back porch. The night is cold and still and a light snow is falling. I pull the quilt tighter around me and gaze out at the snow slowly covering the lawn. From the woods I hear a sound that is like a woman screaming – a tiny screech owl. For something so small it can emit a scream from that sounds like it comes from the pits of despair. The owl screams again. I look up at the dark sky, the stars blacked out by clouds. As I look up, a deeper black slowly glides across the sky – an owl. Probably the screech owl or the saw whet owl I found earlier in autumn living in the woods. There are several owls around here – you can spot them at night or their nesting places during the day if you are observant and very quiet. There is even a ghostly barn owl taking advantage of an old deserted barn. Owls. I love owls. I can sit all night and watch them hunt – hearing their clucking or wild cries as they find and capture prey. The screech owl screams again. The snow continues to fall.

in the cold night owls
split the darkness with their
ghostly glide – snow falls

public domain photo

dVerse Poets Pub: OLN #189

Today, I am linking up for Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub. http://dversepoets.com/2017/02/09/openlinknight-189/ Come join us for some fine poetry writin’…

Laphroaig Night
It is February 8th.
February. 8th.
It is 75 degrees farenheit.
The last time the temperature was this high was 1925.
I’m standing on my back porch
Breathing in the night,
Sipping a good single malt
and listening to the peepers singing
down by the creek.
They are crawling tgrough the wet leaves
And doing their mating thang.
The high pitched bells of their tiny throats
each proclaiming:
In the midst of death we are in life.
In spite of myself I smile.
Politics, religion, wars, arguments,
Fights, battles, hunger, grief, sickness, anger –
All are silenced by their voices.
I finish my scotch.
I smile.
In the midst of death we are in life.

Pewter Landscape III

This is the final poem in the series taken from my tanka, Pewter Landscape, with lines from the tanka used in each poem. The quote line is from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third, act one, scene one, 1-4.

December night sky –
snow like frozen stars, silent
as dust falls to earth.
no wishes on these stars, no dreams.
line of black trees
separating white snow from pewter sky.
ghostly landscape sleeps.
summer photograph fades with time.
“the winter of our discontent”…
hopes become buried in the ocean of snow.

dVerse Poetics (2) 02/02/ 2:00 a.m.

Another poem for dVerse Poetics 2:00 a.m. prompt, offered by Anthony. I am a night owl and write the majority of my poems at night. Many of them are titled with the date and the time of composing.

free image Wikipedia

Black night sky:
I descry through blacker branches
The hazy moon behind clouds.

Flakes of snow falling
Like dust or wet stars.
Each dims out
One.by.one.

初雪（はつゆき First Snow – haiku

midnight: snow flowers
spiral down and quickly die
on my outstretched hand.

01/15 1:15 am – iteboshi

I sit
wrapped in my grandmother’s quilt.
Cold night,
sweet smell of impending snow
crystalizes my breath
into faint ragged clouds.
Silent, still, black night.
Alone
I gaze into the sky above me,
ragged clouds exposing scattered stars
and a bit of the full round moon.
I sit
wrapped in my grandmother’s quilt
waiting for the stars to fall
to the ground in
drifts of glowing white.

12/12/12 12:12 am

This has been a time of contemplation, changes….I had a birthday 11/16. A group of friends/family I call the 11/16 Society, also celebrated as well. We few, happy few…I hope you all will search out some of the posts about this unique crew. Happy birthday my dearly loved band of brothers. And blessings to all of you who seek light in the darkness and who give light.

kanzen sakura

12/12/12  12:12 AM

 

Alone at my post –

My Household snug in warm beds.

Neighborhood silent.

 

Warmly wrapped I gaze

At the night sky.  The Twins

Glow and pulsate to

 

Their own stellar beat.

Fireworks stream against the black

Sky.  Celebrating

 

Celestial joy.

White yellow blue red green – My

Eyes cannot follow

 

The steady bursts of

Glitter strewn by their Maker

To dazzle the few

 

Like me who look

For joy and light in the dark

Places – and find it.

 

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