waiting for Persephone

For the dVerse Tuesday poetics prompt “Persephone“: 

The birds know she is coming.
They are staking out their territory,
marking the boundaries with song.
The sheep know is she coming

August

For the dVerse Monday Haibun prompt, “August“:

August is a time of uncertainty, of transition – of winter greys and browns being suddenly speckled with green and yellow as the daffodils in my garden and the wattles in the bush bloom.
One day I wake to find the birdbath frozen over, and huddle in my coat, woolly beanie pulled low as I rush to do my outdoor chores. The next day the sun warms my back so much I shed layers down to a t-shirt – fooling me into forgetting my woolly beanie the next day so my ears freeze.
One day the air carries the sweet dusty scent of the wattles, the next it is so icy all I can smell is the sharp metallic scent of cold, that reddens the nose and makes it run. And then, suddenly, a hint of spring drifts through again.

A tendril of warmth
curls through the air, carrying
scent of earth and growth.

five red tulips in a white pot II

Five white hearts
wrapped in brittle brown paper,
stir in the dark,
reach out.

Standing in a flurry of snow,
a scatter of hail,
I am torn between eagerness
to see green shoots,
and trepidation at their daring.

 

Five red tulips in a white pot I

frost ferns creep

Sort of for dVerse ONL, because I couldn’t get to the live session. I was asleep at 0500 local time (1500 dVerse time), while the frost was growing.  I’ll join live when the days are a bit longer and warmer.

All night long
in the dark and cold,
the frost-ferns grow,
fronds slowly creeping,
uncurling
across the panes.

Until they catch the first morning light
and throw it back in diamond shards.

And are gone.

We’ve had some very cold nights lately, with ice across puddles in the morning and on the windscreen. I find the variety of ice crystals fascinating. The way they grow depends on the temperature and how much water is in the atmosphere,  as well as the surface they’re growing on, impurities, etc. The bathtub and birdbath grow a glass-like sheath of ice. The windscreen grows a variety of ice crystal structures. I think the “frost ferns” shown are a combination of needle and dendritic crystals. These formed a couple of nights ago on a very cold night after rain. Once the light hit it, it was gone in moments.      

daffodil tete a tete

The first of my tete a tete daffodils has just opened! Spring must be very close indeed, even though there was a brief flurry of snow in Canberra on the weekend.  So here is a celebratory ha’ sonnet. 

 

 

A tete a tete
with daffodils,
“Well met! Well met!”
their greeting fills
me with delight,
and hope, despite
so grey a day.

 

 

“hazy shade of winter”

Rushing between dusk-dimmed paddocks
shuffle tosses to me “a hazy shade of winter”
XXXXXXXXXXXXFields are brown now
and so they are, rough with darkened wheat stubble,
but scattered with bright pools
reflecting a rose-brushed sky.
A fox crosses the road ahead,
a blurred streak of red
as it flies under a six-strand fence.

spring’s golden standard

It’s hard to avoid seeing evidence of climate change, when the spring bulbs are starting to flower around the winter solstice. The jonquils started a few weeks ago, in very early winter, and the first iris opened just a few days ago.

We’re not yet into the coldest part of winter, yet the spring is already pushing its way in. I am trying to enjoy it, without fearing too much the summer that will come after.

In winter’s stronghold
spring’s advance party unfurls
its golden standard.

wisteria pods

With a mouse-trap snap
a wisteria pod splits
spraying bullet seed

 

I was pottering in the garden today and mulching around some wisteria that I grew from collected seed last year. It reminded me of this haiku I wrote last winter.  I had left the wisteria pods on a window sill in a plastic bag, and then forgotten about them. A few weeks later I was startled by sudden bangs and snaps, and found the splitting pods had shredded the bag and sent the seeds across the room!  

silent relic II

For the dVerse “midsummer live” prompt:

A silent relic
recalls bright midsummer songs
through winter darkness.

 

Not live, but rushed to you only a few hours later.   😀
Looking forward to the return of dVerse after your summer break!

blessedly silent relic

A ha’sonnet for Stephen, and his infernal cicadas  😀 

 

Cicada case,
still clinging tight,
through summer days,
through longest night –
you outlasted
noisy bastard
that flew from you.

 

There’s a cicada case on a tree in my chicken coop. It was a lucky insect to make it above chicken height and escape, and I guess it’s left-over case has some of that tenacity.