An Alphabet of Poets – O is for Osler

Overshadowed

I have never prayed in Kyoto
or slept on a bed of cherry blossoms.
On my wooden altar, white petals
have fallen. Beautiful losses.

No-Mind

No-mind has poured from mountains
all night. Gulls float on the stillness.
A freighter steams out of the port,
floats low in the water. What remains?
Smoke trails and this slow wake.

Finally, Spring

I have confused first buds
with failed beginnings,
mistakes and scribbled-over
words. No mistaking this:
the faint blush from buds
on the long black branch.

With great thanks to Ursula Vaira, publisher of Leaf Press in Nanaimo, I have a chapbook, Where The Water Lives, coming out within the next few months. The poems included here are from the chapbook. A sneak preview!

Tsunami

The strange look she gave him
before she spoke. The tremour
that shuddered through the ship
as the current passed under.

After Winter

Alders bow in front of me.
What ever made them bend
like this is gone. But they stay,
buds coming in.

Ceramic Turtle

Turtle, heavy lidded, winks
at me.
I have been moving so slowly
in the chair this morning. My words
fall, one by one, large and lazy flakes
of snow. This page is a tongue
catching them. Turtle hasn’t moved.
He’s the slowest word.