Yellow Shadow

The fallen leaves
of a sheltered tree

form a shadow
made of yellow,

a pointillist shadow
painted yellow,

‘til the wind blows
angled and low

to send that shadow
on its way -

or ‘til the leaves
turn brown and crisp…

whichever comes first.

Evergreen [Haiku]

the evergreen’s
time to shine: when the last
leaf has fallen

DAILY PHOTO: Forest in Northern Hungary

Taken in October of 2022

Contrast [Haiku]

a patch of leaves.
some: light green and veiny;
others: black blobs

The Bright Patch [Haiku]

sunlight fires up
one patch of fall color
engulfed by shadelands

Entranced [Lyric Poem]

I see the lazy sway
of trees across the way.

And I'm lulled into trance
by their languid leafy dance.

And for the time I've lost
there must be some unit cost.

Or, perhaps, only gain.
There was no angst or pain...

only lost moments.

Young & Old [Haiku]

bamboo, young & supple,
looms over knurly and
stunted hardwoods

Elephantine Baobab [Free Verse]

It's called 
Hatiyan-ka-Jhad
because it looks like 
a huddled herd of elephants --
not only in its corpulence
but also with its rough, gray skin.

So rotund at its base
that it's hard to figure
how its slowly slimming upward taper 
can come to twiggy ends,
and not be a mile tall.

The branches are overly muscular, 
like a bodybuilder who got carried away,
moving from strong and vigorous 
into the domain of science fiction mishap.

It has its own mythology -- 
multiple creation tales about 
how its seed got from Madagascar
to the middle of India half a millennium ago:
tales of fakirs and royal envoys.

It's even been said that the Forty Thieves,
the ones who tormented Ali Baba,
used its hollow as their cache cave.

But it refuses to respond to "Open Sesame" --
so I guess we'll never know.