Tiger Riding for Beginners

Traveling Poet Philosopher & Occasional Wiseacre

a troop of langurs:
 five monkeys doing five things
  as one family.

bovine brothers?
 or twins? or maybe I'm just
  seeing double?

autumn grasses
 sway to a different rhythm
  than in summer's youth.

butterflies 
 in spastic jinky orbit:
  play or bloom combat?

in Summer grass,
 resides the remnants 
  of warrior dreams.

Japanese: 夏草や兵共がゆめの跡; natsugusa ya // tsuwamonodomo ga // yume no ato

from old stone ruins
 grow hardy weeds, raising
  flowery heads skyward.

gray autumn skies
 show in liquid metal
  creek pools.

first snowy morn.
 the only signs of life:
  plodding footprints.

sunlight shines
 through the butterfly's wing:
  yet, it seems sluggish.

sinuous limbs
 of a sprawling tree look 
  like wriggling squid.