Hope in question

Posting this one to earthweal.

Cold comes in the answer
and snow in the wind,
furrows fill with white, while
growling incandescence consumes
branch and twig
in our invocation of the sun we have lost
in the dark night of winter.

In the morning,
the embers cold and pitted with deer tracks,
ash streams, the wind still bitter.

Ice cracks in the north
with a dark voice full of teeth,
and in the wood
a thrush is singing.

The breaking of the day

This morning, for once I was wide awake at the magical moment when the night silence was broken by the first bird.

 

I lay awake after the storm

listened

to the silence flow back

the cats settle

the air stir again night cool

just before dawn cool

listened

to the sigh of the oaks

water laden weary

listened

to tiny insect sounds

beetling

watched

through the shutters

light soft as pigeons

sky grey as mist grow

heard

the glorious burst,

two, three notes rapid

repeated, then a tumble of song

thrush the first bird

filling with utter loveliness

the breaking of day.

A thrush, the first bird

 

The restless, storm-tossed night was long,

dark filled with wave-hiss, snapping boughs,

a ship moored in a sea-rocked berth.

 

No stars, a heavy quilt of cloud

pressed down, oppressed the swaying trees,

the restless storm-tossed night was long.

 

When rage along the river swept,

storm carried north across the hills,

dark filled with wave-hiss, snapping boughs,

 

a thrush, the first bird, broke the calm,

a rush of song sailed through the dawn,

a ship rocked in a sheltered berth.

An unexpected frost

first frost

furs grass

the waking sky

wakes the winter music

of the throstle

 

first thrush of winter

when all the summer voices

are fallen silent

his alone fills the leafless trees

with music

 

 

sun fills the sky

with light

blue and gold

thrush fills the blue golden air

with song

 

 

 

Thrush in three lines

Photo credit: Taco Meeuwsen

from dawn the thrush sings

repeating trills with touching

hesitation

 

crawling among delpiniums

snails profit

from his concentration

 

ocean of wind

sways the poplars—thrush’s song

flows never ebbs

Haiku on a thrush tuning up

 

notes repeat again

again a hesitant stream

thrush still practicing

Missel

For the dverse prompt, a poisonous plant haibun. Linguists might be interested in the wikipedia entry for Throstle.

He dipped the point in mistletoe and pressed blind Hodr to join the sport. A brutish game it seems to us, to beat and pound and stab and spear, but times were different then and life was harsh. So Baldr died, and all of Asgard wept and swept the world to find the fiend. (Did Loki ever do a bit of good?) Odin caught him in the end, devised a suitable unsubtle ending, long, drawn out and with plenty of collateral damage.

Times were different then. They didn’t know that one mistletoe berry never killed anybody.

Sticky moon berries,

winter harvest for throstles—

ancient rituals.

In the forest

In the forest a leaf falls

And feeds the snail

That feeds the thrush

That the fox takes to feed her cubs.

 

In the forest a tree falls

And the fox wakes

To catch a rabbit sniffing green shoots

So the shoots grow.

 

The rain from the ocean pours

And the earth drinks

Feeding the shoot

That grows to a tree.

 

In the shade of the tree

Fox lies where snails glide

Watching the rabbits

While the thrush sings.

 

The sun shines

The rain falls

And the ocean rolls

While in the shade of a tree

Young foxes tumble

Among the first falling leaves.