Sacrificial

Why is it this year that the familiar warbler songs sound like dripping blood or fabric being torn?

What May Come

Where did it come from, this premonition that someday I will be parted from my head?

Train following the river; snowflakes following the train.

There’s no denying the appeal of dead trees: they look more human.

In a distant field, a white house glows like a sail in the late-March sun.

The feeling that something is about to happen, out here where nothing ever happens…

Strolling down the Allegheny Front on an old rail bed. A haibun.

Visiting Dad’s grave yesterday, I had a strong sense of his absence amid the fundamental indifference of nature.

When I stand up, I see the large coyote that’s been watching me—who knows for how long—from 50 feet away.

If I were a tree, head-down in the earth, I’d stretch one toe into the clouds.

[haibun]
snow-bound trees
I’d like to die
on my feet

[haibun]
teethmarks
on the trail sign…
my last sip of tea