Some Haiku and Tanka

drawings by Ralph Lillford

Christmas lights swirling

snakes in the tree. Another

unpublished poem.

Sun’s bright yellow in

his beak, as far from me as

what will never speak.

Pine tree black against

moonlit mist; to be almost

as happy as this.

 

Closed lilies floating

by the water’s edge, trees bound

by the swaying dark.

But suddenly I am geese

printing distant air with flight.

Awake in the dark

I hear a furious bee

knocking against glass.

Slanting in across the roofs

the first cool rain of autumn.

Sitting in the guard’s

van on everyone else’s

bags, poets can smile.