Twenty-second Stone

Instant coffee flakes
glint like mica--
crystalline treasure--
my morning coffee,
the sun rising on
my tongue, pulls
clouds from my mind.

Twenty-first Stone

Two macaws
fly in tandem
blue red blue red
wingtip to wingtip
wheeling and dipping
with the currents.

Twentieth Stone

Two miles away
on the ridgeline
six pylons spread
along the crest
blinking red
like medieval
warning beacons.

Nineteenth Stone

Facing right,
head on the white
cotton pillowcase,
I fall asleep to
the ebb and flow
of waves
on the sound machine;
when I turn to my left,
the ebb and flow
of traffic
through the open windows
continues to lull me.

Eighteenth Stone

Sunlight glances off white feathers
as the birds arrow and wheel
silver slivers slicing the blue,
like the glitter of the sun
off silver scales, as shoals
of herring arrow and wheel
silver slivers slicing the blue.


redraft thanks to ws

Seventeenth Stone

Sleet has a beat:
it rattles when it hits
like the rat-a-tat of
dried beans
pouring
into a pot.

Sixteenth Stone

After the rains
come mushrooms
shouldering and
shoving through
crannies pushing
aside small stones.