Tiger Riding for Beginners

Traveling Poet Philosopher & Occasional Wiseacre

across the lake,
 the snowy mountains stand
  in denial of Spring.

heavy-headed thistles
 sway in the cow pasture,
  bees read their motion.

drying cormorant
 folds up its wings, resigned
  to grounding by rain.

beach in winter:
 fully clothed walkers shrug
  against a cold breeze.

a starling stomps,
 like a masked bandit, 
  across dusty earth.

a single lily 
 stands out in a pond of pads:
  bright to browned.

sprawling tree, 
 laid asunder by its own weight:
  a crack plus time

one last leaf,
 its longanimity great,
  falls -- unseen.

solitary fish
 darts about at lake's edge:
  taunting fates & fishers.

after the harvest,
 farmland - dry & ignitable:
  distant smoke.