In a distant field, a white house glows like a sail in the late-March sun. A bluejay on the ridge ahead screams like a Hollywood eagle, otherwise known as a red-tailed hawk. I do a double-take at a dark shape upslope, but it’s just an old stump.
March wind
scouring the mountainside
for a gravestone
Christ it’s cold
the black soil gripping
sassafras roots
conjoined maples
rubbing together
that shriek
circled
by a question mark butterfly
am I a tree
old maple
all the green springs
of its seedlings
Woodrat photohaiku 