Haikumuse | Winter/Spring 2009

by Madeleine Findlay

 

 

boisterous
a flock of grackles keep pace –
falling snow

a snowy hill
over-trafficked by sled marks
soaks in the sun

ice pellets
bounce off my scarf
one after another

happiness –
ice water drips and echoes
in the catch basin

a biting wind
courses through warm sunlight –
witch hazel in bloom

elderly driver
shielding her eyes from the sun
wooly mitten

---

 
by Tom D'Evelyn

Spacious skies
     elbows on their paddles
          kayakers speed past

Today not the snow’s
     but the river’s noiselessness
          warble of rockdoves

I can only think
     of the rocking of the buoy
          in the icy wind

Even on Chestnut
     black asphalt shows through the snow
          slave burial ground

At Long Wharf
     disappearing behind an island
          slave ship

How bright the name
     on the big ship’s rusty stern
          this winter morning

on black ice
     a man pauses so his dog
          may relieve herself

Follow the geese up
     the misting Piscataqua
          New Year’s Day

Lull in construction
     through snow and scaffolding
          the Piscataqua

that invisible
     current breaks into whitecaps
          Christmas day

with her tongue stuck out
     the child looks up, eyes blinking
          first snow

a cold day
     nothing moves on the river
          but the Piscataqua