“Anguish” [Haiku]

“Anguish” by August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck (1878)
mother bleats a cloud,
standing over its dead lamb --
ringed by a murder 

Lizard Look [Haiku]

a lizard slinks
up to the stone's edge,
turning an eye on me

Spines Aglow [Haiku]

the frilly spines
of an iguana catch light,
marring camo

No Egret [Haiku]

the egret walks
away from a lone cow that's
too still to stir bugs

Squirrel Grind [Common Meter]

The squirrel's life 's an acorn hunt:
forage and hide the nut.
But a feeble mind requires that
it hide them by the glut.

Squirrel happiness is fragile
no cache is big enough
to be certain it'll make it through
should the winter get rough. 

Oh, give me the tardigrade life,
not a doubt it'll survive.
No food, no water, vacuum of space
and the thing 's still [bleeping] alive.

Rather than gathering plenty,
I'd rather need much less,
or, at least, not be so mindless
to hoard in great excess.

DAILY PHOTO: Seeing Eye to Eye with a Giraffe

Taken in June of 2017 at the Giraffe Center on the outskirts of Nairobi

Rock Agama [Tanka]

a Rock Agama
peeks over a rock, stops,
and tries to be
inconspicuously
bright orange

Nocturnal [Kyōka]

owl sticks its head out,
staring in silent rebuke
as if to say:
"Hey! I'm nocturnal.
What's with all the ruckus?"

Golden Pheasant [Senryū]

the Golden Pheasant
looks committee assembled...
by first graders

Green Branch [Haiku]

a brown branch
runs beside the green branch
that isn't a branch