under spring skies, the evergreen - thick with new needles - echoes the tune sung by hardwood neighbors
POEM: Newly Evergreen [PoMo Day 16 – Tanka]
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The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.
mountain clouds may become your fog, or may sit in wait
The burbling sounds did clarify my mind. Somehow, the flowing stream was one with me, and sitting down just at the riverbend, I felt more flowing rhythm than I could see. Some part of me was whisked in search of sea, though my body sat at the muddy edge. I know not how a part of me could flee -- just pure potential, being on a ledge. I lost the river like one loses blood. It's there, but [unseen] becomes all and none. Each is swept along swiftly by a scud, but seem so still when you and it are one. The mystic moment comes then flits away, and I am left with nothing fine to say.
Saffron-hued flowers huddle on a wind-whipped clifftop.
Sea breezes toss and twirl pollen,
eddies send some back down to the beach.
Land breezes feed pollen to the dark waters far below.
The flowers are ever-tousled by the wind’s rough hand.
What must they love, in their sightless stance,
that matches my sighted stare at sea and sky?