Snake Fisher [Haiku]

snake wrestles fish
onto rocky home turf, &
blends with sun-warmed stones.

Frogs Heard, Not Seen [Haiku]

grass-rattle, plop!
grass-rattle, plop! -- repeats...
 at last, I see a frog.

Camouflage, Not! [Haiku]

a squirrel chitters;
its black body against
 the ash gray tree.

Garden Carp [Haiku]

saffron-colored carp
mill about the garden pond.
 a cat watches...

Roosters of Youth [Haiku]

when I was a child,
roosters aggressively charged;
 now: they flee, clucking.

Stalking Tiger [Free Verse]

A giant tiger stalks,
baring teeth, tensing claws,
closing the distance
in deep shadows that exist
entirely within the man's mind.

While others, from safe distances,
can see the fearsome beast clearly.

Cat Dandy [Kyōka]

cat on a porch rail
preens between naps
 to look good
for the twenty waking
 minutes of its day. 

Riverbed Reveal [Haiku]

gray day river --
the exposed riverbed
 shows only by tracks

“A narrow Fellow in the Grass” (1096) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
 Occasionally rides --
You may have met him? Did you not
 His notice instant is --

The Grass divides as with a Comb,
 A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
 And opens further on --

He likes a Boggy Acre --
 A Floor too cool for Corn --
But when a Boy and Barefoot
 I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
 Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
 It wrinkled And was gone --

Several of Nature's People
 I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
 Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow
 Attended or alone
Without at tighter Breathing
 And Zero at the Bone.

“Thoughts in a Zoo” by Countee Cullen [w/ Audio]

They in their cruel traps, and we in ours,
Survey each other's rage, and pass the hours
Commiserating each the other's woe,
To mitigate his own pain's fiery glow.
Man could but little proffer in exchange
Save that his cages have a larger range.
That lion with his lordly, untamed heart
Has in some man his human counterpart,
Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped,
But in the stifling flesh securely trapped.
Guant eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars
That prison you, so men cry for the stars!
Some delve down like the mole far underground,
(Their nature is to burrow, not to bound),
Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye,
Stir not, but sleep and smoulder where they lie.
Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we,
Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?