Flamingos frolic in the surfless still of the sea side morning’s pastoral. Limbs and feathers paint a fantastical fan, this stretching before the sun. The water dopples, dolloped with pink reflections. A mirror ed magic, reflexive of another dimension. Alien in pastel tones of aggressive softness, they adamantly defend their rights to this dance. _____________________________________________________________________ [...]
_________________________________________________ Dayna Patterson is Poetry Editor at Psaltery & Lyre. For more, and information about where else to find her work, go here. Photo by JRLibby, 2012 via Wikimedia Commons.
As I walk on a warm evening, an invisible strand of spider silk lands across my neck. Another snags my elbow. I brush at them, but they are tricky to unhook. Where is the spider who set this clever snare? I’m not near a tree or pole or any structure for that matter. This spider [...]
This is a rewrite of an earlier post published here on WIZ. One dark night in January of 2010 Mark and I made a last minute run to the only grocery store within 22 miles. On our return trip home, I drove with the SUV’s highbeams on, because we live on a rural road where, [...]
This is a rewrite of a post published here on WIZ that I’m including in my book Crossfire Canyon. I’m posting the rewrite today in response to finding a bounty-killed coyote on this morning’s walk. April 8, 2009. As I walked out of a nearby canyon last week along a trail where I had previously [...]
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels – Colossians 2:18 She thinks I am praying to her Kneeling before her Extending my hands to her Her Egyptian ancestors earned their worship Guarding food from mice, fighting cobras Giving shape to perfume and ointment jars Instead she [...]
Through tangles of blackberry canes gallops a regal creature of the timber: Odocoileus virginianus, or the white-tailed deer. This one is a buck with cracked antlers, his coat birch brown. He sniffs the air before crossing the man-made paths. This veteran has survived so many hunting seasons because of his respect for orange vests and [...]
The sky’s an ocean, as all eagles know Who plumb the splendour nest to keel, A craze of very ships in fleets that flow On voyages forbidden whale and seal. Its currents race, chained to the planet’s turn, Churned by the jilted passion of the sun, Exacting fervor from the veil-eyed fern Mured in a [...]
A nameless beaver sprang the trap. Must have swum through it on his way up shore. The two dogs, Jax and Cleo, crouched in their winter coats, Gripped and pulled, But the snare held, Jealous of its prey. I found them: Red paw prints in the savaged snow, Scrabbling blindly at the brink. They parted [...]
You think I wouldn’t be able to tell one Robin from another, but I know this isn’t the mother of the two fledglings unfortunately nested dead center of the Hibiscus tree on my deck. No, this one is different, sort of a tuft of hair on its head instead of the smooth feathers of the [...]