Midwinter Trees

 (2/18/25)

All the gray branches

reach high like

   the fingers of lean arms.

Like the fibers of a broom wisp—

they may sweep the sky of its clouds.

I Love (poem)

I love

looking up through the trees

how the leaves change the sky

while little impatiens grow by the porch

the kind breeze touches my bare skin

and old friends ask how I am.

I love

going out so I can come back

how the Saturday afternoon sun

makes angels of it all.

(8/22/2009)

Where (poem)

Happy world poetry day!

Where

This is where I wrote my poem,
this craggy, jagged sidewalk:
brown and gray with pebbled,
oil-soaked patches, and near the yellow-painted curb,
whose rotted cigarette stumps and
empty soda cans are
left for birds who sing and chirp
in the friendly treetops.

A stop sign presents red octagonality
near a woman. She walks and turns, looking
at house numbers, then finds her car and leaves.

Nonetheless, thin, silken wisps and bright sky above
hang gilded by the almost-spring sun,
this Sunday evening, shortly ’til seven.
Streetlamps lack their illumination.
Themselves ashen, they cast slender shadows.
Gangly green weeds sprung from recent rains
crack the blacktop’s edge, each an
image of the imperturbable.

An engine starts.
A bird answers.
A green car rounds the sigiled street corner.
As one arrives, someone else leaves.


Copyright © 2015, Christian T. Kaltwasser.

Anxious Bird

Anxious Bird

I walk among effulgent flowers
  of May reds and violets, and
  an anxious black bird
  flees my track on rushing wings.
This gush of rough sound across my ears
  joins the ticks of bicycle gears
  and whirrs of a distant mower,
  as songbirds pipe and whistle.
Atop an arbor, another eyes me,
  large and taciturn, his sable beak turning,
  his wings of flint folded,
  and then is gone.
Small blue flowers hug cool shade,
  remembering the skies and sounds of spring.


(May 23–24, 2017)

National Poetry Month: ‘Barter’ by Sara Teasdale

In honor of National Poetry Month and a nice sunny day here in Oregon, here is one of my favorite poems by Sara Teasdale:

Barter

Related Poem Content Details

BY SARA TEASDALE

Life has loveliness to sell,

     All beautiful and splendid things,

Blue waves whitened on a cliff,

     Soaring fire that sways and sings,

And children’s faces looking up

Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,

     Music like a curve of gold,

Scent of pine trees in the rain,

     Eyes that love you, arms that hold,

And for your spirit’s still delight,

Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,

     Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

     Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Haiku

haiku

yellow ginkgo leaves,
fluttering like paper fans
painted by sunlight

(11/8/2016)

You Fall Leaf

You Fall Leaf

The fall—its colors and smells—

and you, brown leaf, individuated

yet undistinguished,

fell from your parent tree to rest

on bleak concrete.

Among your ruddy fellows,

among plastic bags,

gray safety pins,

and orange spray-painted glyphs,

the crisp sunlight curls you and

autumn enters.

An academy of gray squirrels

bustle about you,

twitching,

collecting their compulsions.

The eternity of summer’s greens

end for you.

Drivers in vans ignore you.

(They carry no cash.)

Will a black cackling crow peck you

to collect a twig?

Will you dance

at night, with a dirty plastic spoon?

Will a child add you

to a science project?

You, impermanent, will crumble:

the dust from whence you grew

will reclaim you, in time,

while you become

a significant insignificant

in the sights and smells of fall.

(9/29/2016)

Where (poem)

Where

This is where I wrote my poem,
this craggy, jagged sidewalk:
brown and gray with pebbled,
oil-soaked patches, and near the yellow-painted curb,
whose rotted cigarette stumps and
empty soda cans are
left for birds who sing and chirp
in the friendly treetops.

A stop sign presents red octagonality
near a woman. She walks and turns, looking
at house numbers, then finds her car and leaves.

Nonetheless, thin, silken wisps and bright sky above
hang gilded by the almost-spring sun,
this Sunday evening, shortly ’til seven.
Streetlamps lack their illumination.
Themselves ashen, they cast slender shadows.
Gangly green weeds sprung from recent rains
crack the blacktop’s edge, each an
image of the imperturbable.

An engine starts.
A bird answers.
A green car rounds the sigiled street corner.
As one arrives, someone else leaves.


(3/9/2015, 3/18/2015)

Daffodils

This is not a poem and not a scholarly article. I realize I don't share a lot because I really want things to be perfect. So here's a picture I took today in my front yard. Is it perfect? Does it matter?

Daffodils like the nice weather we're having!

Minding the Melt (A Sonnet?)

Minding the Melt

Walking without a wrap, despite my recent cold,
the morning air stings inside my tender nose,
and trees patter down so much melting ice,
they must be wringing out the moss
that coats the crotch and purfle of every twig.
A gray squirrel with his tail fluffed wide
skids in fearless leaps from leaf-patched grass
and scales the nearest trunk.

Above the scene, the November-angled sun spotlights
his fast acrobatics and embosses the glassy
chilled surface of everything – curbs, shrubs, puddles, mud.
The trees don’t seem to care who might venture under
their sagging limbs. They distill a private
rain song from last night’s freeze.


(Nov. 14 & 15, 2014)

Haiku

After warm rains, a
brown marmorated stink bug
hangs on my bed stand.


(10/22/2014)

Apparently these are an invasive species accidentally brought to the U.S. from Asia a few years ago. They are considered pests because they damage ornamental and crop plants. We're seeing a lot of them in the area right now.

Equinox (poem)

Equinox


Soft, slender, pallid moon
untouched by cloying, custard clouds,
unmoved by graying steely sky,
unmatched for delicate features.

Acorns dropped on dusty earth
(to separate the brown and shade)
recall how fast the twilight fades
on a late September walk.

A dog breaks a stern note.
Ashen green and stony must,
the path is worn by summer tread,
by grass, by footprints, by twigs.

The measured hour has passed again.
Comes soon the starry dark
and brings the cooling, sweaty dusk:
no bird, no breeze, no rain.


(9/28/2014)

Zephyr (poem)

Zephyr

(word, woven
reaching fronds
curved
  a tree round
watching
wind-dancing)

Woven-wound and wind-dancing,
a curved tree watches its fronds,
to reach airy conclusions.

A bird, holed up, corroborates
its wit: cotton-leafed wings
whistle the midsummer postprandial breeze.

July, still before a thunder-burst.


(7/22/2014)

Mosquito

Mosquito

As early evening’s open doors
and warm May air usher in
a roving hypodermic,

I spot him, gnawing my
left third finger
near the second joint,

wide with blood,
brown striped, bird-like,
he feeds, and flees too quick,

so with an angry clap
I mash him midair
and spot my palms with red.


(5/12/2014)

Haiku

Haiku

tulips torn by rain
Bashō waxes nostalgic
month of white flowers


(4/21/2014)

Haiku (summer)

The orange tabby
stretches for a butterfly —
petunias in bloom.


7/14/2013

Listening to Beethoven

Listening to Beethoven

A young man presses the keys,
lightly steps a brass pedal,
and movement changes minutes to sunbeams
thrumming, moving, dancing lightly
like air over a cool mountain brook.
Carillon bells peal prayers of grotto monks.
Little bells ripple on a lake.
The smallest bells press tiny feet in soft grasses,
sweet blond hair flowing after.
Pulses race between flower petals
as soaring scents pollinate the breeze
returning with the stars and planets,
caressing like spring rain
tickling green moss.

The lifted door of the piano mirrors open faces
gathered to hear his play.


(2/11/13 & 3/5/13)

Haiku

Haiku

in the green, wet grass
silent blackbirds pick the ground
by blue hydrangeas


(10/26/2012)

Haiku

Haiku

brown plastic leaf bins
the life of the maple tree
makes work for the rake


(10/24/2012)

October haiku

Haiku


dreams of such meaning
gone. a terrible feeling
to have to wake up


the first rain of fall
blank white sky above the trees
wets the bird droppings


(10/12/2012)