A Cardinal Showing off His Crimson or Feathers vs. Petals

cardinal alights
on the magnolia branch-
a flurry of pink


How quickly beauty fades. Especially in this rushed, frantic winter/spring/summer of 2012. Imagine, 80 degree days before the vernal equinox. Now at least we can say it's Spring.

At dusk, I stare at our stately magnolia and notice that below it the deck is littered with thousands of browning petals, fallen away in nature's exuberant excess. Only about forty blossoms remain; they look forlorn spread among so many branches.

I've been reading a book called Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Interviews with America's Poets edited by Alexander Neubauer. In it poet, haikuist, and Japanese scholar Gary Snyder said this about wildness and poetry, "I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”

Of course that's far too big a task for a haiku but celebrating the soil, its gifts, and our animal companions--no matter how tiny or big--is something we can set our hearts and minds to.