Footprints

                              Footprints in the snow

                                      the kisses of feet

                             on shallow skin

                                                and

                                                the sinking feeling of love.

31. A joy of magpies (haiku)

A joy of magpies

cackle their chatty gossip

fishwives in the tree.

Q.  Why ‘joy’ when that’s not the collective word for magpies en bloc ? 

A. From the rhyme : ‘one for sorrow, two for joy……..’   (wikipedia)

30. Eucharist

With the aching breaking of dawn

and a shallow sun

the snow begins to shuffle away;

like inverse communion -

turning from holy white

to blasphemous grey

as it gathers

its sin.

29. other tracks

Others have passed this way,

their motives unclear.

They have written their moments

with forensic footfall,

silent evidence,

imprinted in the overnight canvas.

There is no need

to further dust

for prints -

I have a nose

for these

things.

28. Icicles

Hiding in the winter jasmine

travelling earthwards

from lofty roosting

old snow

metamorphoses

drip by tortuous drip

to transparent stalactites

amid the dripping thaw.

27. Fieldfare

With no fanfare,

the flighty fieldfare

foregoes her furtive foraging.

Sentry-settling in nearby tree

she waits at extravagant attention

for the intruder

to pass by.

I have no designs

on her berries,

they have stained her chest.

26 tracks

Deceptive arrows,

about face,

pointing

to history.

Imprints of travel,

snapshots of the journey,

moments preserved, for the moment.