Chasing Daylight

This beautiful Red Shouldered Hawk sat on a limb just beyond the edge of my back yard. The birds at the feeder did not seemed concerned and continued to come and go as usual.  I saw him dive down after a mouse in the weeds. That is how I happened to seem him.

Hawk looking for lunch

Making the most of daylight

Winter Solstice near

Phot: Dwight L. Roth

Frank Tassone  reminded us that we are coming up on the longest/shortest day of the year. This coming Saturday is the Winter Solstice in our hemisphere. Midwinter can only mean one thing… Spring is on the way! Our Haikai poem this week is to refer to midwinter.

Join us at: https://frankjtassone.com/2019/12/14/haikai-challenge-117-12-14-19-midwinter-mafuyu-midsummer-manastu-haiku-senryu-haibun-tanka-haiga-renga/

Passing it on…

As one body dies one is born
Rekindling the spirit within.
The cycle never ceases to go on
Passing on the light of God to our kin.
Some choose to pass on evil and hate
The infection spreads like the flu.
But even this infection you can abate
When the love of God is within you.
As we live our lives from day to day
Let God’s light dwell in your soul.
Knowing this world will be a better place
If you shed all that hate and turmoil.
Think about what you pass on to your children
Is it love or divisive hate?
What spirit will be reincarnated from you//
Think carefully before it’s too late.

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Filling the Void

During the Christmas season, we often find we are caught up in the Holiday rush to find the right gift.  The commercial aspects of Christmas start before Thanksgiving. Stores and retailers all want to cash in as people rush to buy presents they think will make someone happy. In reality happiness is short lived, but joy is a part of who we are as a person. True joy is found in God’s Love, which is the real reason for the season.

Christmas is not about
Angels
Christmas is not about
Wise men
Mary and Joseph
The baby
In a manger, cold
Not about Santa
Coming
Nor gifts or presents
Wrapped tight
Not shining bright lights
At night

Christmas is our sign
His love
Permeating Love
Filling
A universal void
Our hearts
Filled by the great I AM

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Open Link night at d’Verse Poets Pub. Join us at:  https://dversepoets.com

Grateful

Some folks complain about change in their lives. Others want to go back to the good old days. But, there are some things we would not want to go back to, such as outhouses on a cold winter day. We take indoor plumbing and toilets as a given, when we should be grateful for our warm seat!

Baby Boomers may

remember the cheeks’ cold chill

on a winter day

when seated on this throne

Grateful that those days are gone

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Tears of the Moon

Tears of the Moon stream down evaporating in the abyss;
Memories of a blue planet rising and setting echo silently
off the Sea of Tranquility, they are quickly swallowed up
in fiery canyons and portals of a whole new world.

People have been gone for eons,
obliterated when the earth threw a world-wide tantrum
blowing its stacks // spitting fire and ice over everything
ridding itself of the leeches, ticks, and bedbugs known as humans.
Now its a new dimension of colored portals exuding light.
Silence speaks volumes on this Third Rock from the Sun.
The moon still shines, but the echo of voices is lost forever

Tears of the Moon painting: Dwight L. Roth

Today at d’Verse, Merril asked us to write a poem that includes some form of the world Echo. I decided to turn my painting into a sci-fi piece.

Join us at: https://dversepoets.com

Smack

Lightning pain surge
Recalculating reality in split seconds
Turning //flying off to a nearby limb
Stunned // dazed // confused
The path of deception was clear
Only a dead stop brings a wakeup call
Leaving imprints // taking bruises
Concussion collision survived
Learning through “hard knocks”
The dove phoenix rises once more

***

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Wave Therapy

Long shadows follow

Spiritual renewal found

in whispering waves

***

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Frozen Memories

Snow covers the swing

Sweet memories of summer

left frozen in time

Cold December Moon shines full

Moonbeams dance on snow

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

Frank Tassone reminded us that the Cold December Moon will shine full this coming week, on the twelfth. He asked us to write a Haikai poem that included the Cold December Moon.

Join us at: https://frankjtassone.com/2019/12/07/haikai-challenge-116-12-7-19-cold-moon-haiku-senryu-haibun-tanka-haiga-renga/

Sticky Business

Bees are special creatures. They spend their lives gathering nectar feeding the queen caring for the young and storing honey in honeycombs. Bees are in danger from pesticides and other toxic pollutants in the environment. Anyone who has eaten honey knows how sticky it is when it gets on your fingers. What is amazing to me is they can produce all that honey without getting stuck in it themselves. Perhaps the beeswax has something to do with that!

Tiny little bees
Producing sticky sweetness
Why don’t they get stuck?

Photos used with permission from: https://www.facebook.com/Christy-Creek-Honey-415290788904355/

Christy Creek Honey is in Northern Alberta, Canada. My wife’s cousin and husband run this wonderful business of raising bees and selling honey. Check out their Facebook page shown above.

Honsaker Tombstone

I walk through the cemetery of my childhood
visiting old friend’s stones, long engraved;
unchanged through every season.
Each stone’s name brings back a special memory;
Some much more memorable that others.

“O, there you are my favorite stone of all
You haven’t changed a bit in fifty years
Honsaker tombstone do you remember
How we walked your ledge in the dark
On summer Sunday evenings after church;
And, do you remember when my friend Jimmy
brought a girl to make out in your dark shadow;
What a wonder you are // the largest rock on the hill.”

“You don’t know how confining it is to remain unchanged;
Year after year watching the living and the dead pass by
Oh. how I long for the freedom to move and rise above
like the birds flying overhead.
I remember you and all your friends with great nostalgia;
Your laughter and happiness lifted my spirits.
But now, all that is gone and I sit here // alone // rock solid
Waiting for the end of time.”

I leave them all behind as I walk back to my car
feasting on memories frozen in time.

Photos: Dwight L. Roth

Amaya, at d’Verse, asked us to look at the use of apostrophe in poetry. I always thought that an apostrophe was just that little mark you use when writing a contraction. Today, I learned it is much more than that when used in poetry. It becomes a form of personification, injecting and addressing what is not there as though it was a living being. I think I got that right!? I chose a tombstone that I remember very well.
Join us at: https://dversepoets.com