Between Two Rivers

Twelve haiku and a tanka. Written for the end of spring.

1.
departure: briskness
of spring breeze whispering
echoes of april storm

2.
arrival: vapor of
concrete and crowd heat surrounding
our family embrace

3.
evening song of the sea
washing shells and skipped stones
out of her wavy hair

4.
long local drives
around the state: writing again of
paths i once treaded

5.
maw of manhattan
on a watercolor evening: how i
long to share it with you

6.
pulling poems out
from the cracks where feeling
blooms into language

7.
american birds my verse
chinese characters my refrain
belgian memories my coda

8.
pool of sunlight
swirled around a frozen cone:
magnificence

9.
nothing left to mourn
but dreams whose seeds had no
soil for planting

10.
with freedom back
in my hands i shape it into
a new title: poet

11.
what presences i 
could have claimed: a song now
for summer crickets

12. (After Sonia Sanchez.)
what I’ve learned
from writing poems: toughness
of beauty in words

13.
spring as noun and verb:
      swift motion of poetry
borne soft on the curve
      where the west wind moves the trees
      with its command: sing.