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PARADE
They strut across our lawn oblivious to our stares. The cat sits watching these large objects, birds perhaps she thinks, but nothing like those she once hunted for food when she was homeless and pregnant. She is content to sit and watch them, speaks a momentary hello, and realizing that they do not speak cat,…
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APPROACHING NIGHT
Arising into nightthe departing suntangos away with its cloud,memories soon forgotten. Other dancers take the stage,now a romance, nowa war dance, feathers raisedin prayer to unseen gods. Night will soon bringits curtain across this stage,the avian casts’ final bows takenthe theater will darken, awaitinganother performance,a new script tomorrow,but for this solitary momentof frozen grace, it…
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WEBBING
The giant spider in its black shroudsits irritated in the center of its webwishing it ever larger, demandingthat others enter, become enthralleduntil it defines the parametersof the universe the spider imagines. The giant spider silently seethesat the once gardener who, havingtasted the forbidden fruit,has closed the screened dooras he reluctantly departed the gardendiminishing the web’s…
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FIVE HAIKU
The dawn cedes slowlyto the impinging sunlightbirds greet the new day The great egret liftsher wings embracing the cloudthe winter sun smiles on the barren branchthe red-shouldered hawk awaitsher mate and the sun sandhill cranes wanderalong the shore of the lakelooking for nothing the moon is a cupwaiting for night to fill itvenus sits empty
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GET A ROOM
You feel like a voyeur, staringas the red-shouldered hawksmate in a tree mere yardsfrom where you are standing. Still, you cannot take your eyesaway from them, your cameratightly focussed, an avianpornographer perhaps, or maybe just a lucky soul given the chanceto witness a ritual denied to most,and you know with luck their offspringwill repeat the…
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DUSK
There is nothing like, nowords to adequately describe,that moment when a cloud-hazed sun lingers wishfullyjust above the horizon, graspingthe sky with brilliant talonsof light, fearing becominglost in a darkness that will,on this night of the new moon,engulf us all in its inky shroud. We know, or pray, the sunwill return in hours, justas the sun…
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POP-UP BUFFET
The cranes walk togetheras a pair, announcingthemselves loudly,strolling across the lawnheaded for the one yardwhere the sod has beentorn out to allow regrading. The equipment has pausedand they take thisas an invitation, stoppingfor a large mealat the new buffet,certain that thiswas done just for themand perhaps a few ibis,should they happen along. Tomorrow this will…
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TRY LOOKING
He loved walking around the small lake. He could make a circuit in just under 40 minutes. If. If he didn’t stop to marvel at or photograph some bird along the shore. The runners flashing by him gave him strange looks, likely because they didn’t see the beauty in this bird’s feathers, how the light…
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ABYSMAL
At the edge of the abyss,teetering on the precipiceyou need not tell us notto jump, need not tell usthe horrid details thatwould befall us if we did,blood and gore ininfinitesimal detail. It is more than enoughthat you point out to usthe sheer height at whichwe stand, the craggedfloor of the canyonawaiting those whoimagine they can…
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LUNA PENDING
From the heart of the nightthe moon appeared, or a smallcrescent of it, coy this nightas she is on a regular basis. She hinted at her fullness,but we knew that was stilldays off, the moon keptto a rigid schedule always. But her reticence this nightinvited the stars to takethe stage, some we rarely seewhether hiding…