sidewalk amblers
pass within inches
of unruffled magpie.
Innercity Magpie [Haiku]
Reply
Who knows this or that?
Hark in the wall to the rat:
Since the world was, he has gnawed;
Of his wisdom, of his fraud
What dost thou know?
In the wretched little beast
Is life and heart,
Child and parent,
Not without relation
To fruitful field and sun and moon.
What art thou? His wicked eye
Is cruel to thy cruelty.

Summer night:
bell pavilion - silent,
but for cricket chirp.
You came to my door in the dawn and sang;
it angered me to be awakened from sleep,
and you went away unheeded.
You came in the noon and asked for water;
it vexed me in my work,
and you were sent away with reproaches.
You came in the evening with your flaming torches.
You seemed to me like a terror and I shut my door.
Now in the midnight I sit alone in my lampless room
and call you back whom I turned away in insult.

stream cascade:
soft water burble drowns out
the city’s noise.