RED BIRD OF WINTER

Every morning you call to me.

Long after the leaves have fallen,

you still come

to perch on thorny branches.

Today your song

is a reproach:

tsk, tsk.

I couldn't sleep again.

I rise from bed,

my hip aching

and watch you pick your way,

through frozen tufts of grass.

Your red does not fade.

I want to be like you

and never lose my appetite for morning.

By Annette Opalczynski

Soft comes the hush of eventide

And songbirds hide

In limbs of budded trees

To bid farewell to setting sun

With lullabies they've sung

Each night for centuries.

A lark is winging swiftly home -

Black dot alone -

Beneath auroral clouds.

All nature makes a homeward rush

As twilight's rosy blush

The eyes of night arouse.

By Margaret Yacavace

SNOW VISION

Lovely tree,

Yesterday

wild winds of winter combed

your black and twining hair.

When dawn blinked

You emerged 

softly capped in ermine,

star-kissed with diamonds. 

Wind's sharp breath caught in his throat 

and sun, stricken sun, 

can't turn his eye from you.

By Rita Reed

PUPPY

On a puppy's sleepy

spotted tummy

the sun connects her dots.

Her back legs tricycle.

Her pink snout-

of-a-velvet church

beads with milk;

a muffle; an eye

swims under its lid

as her brother's tongue

takes her ear up

like a flower petal.

By Stephen Lindow

BLOOM

I want to tell you 

about the sunflower I found 

on the sidewalk yesterday.

It is wilting and curled and gorgeous

and knows it.

I want to age like that, 

never forgetting my own beauty, 

never forgetting how to say bloom.

By Anna Voelker