"Letter Home" by Pamela Alexander

Crow1916. Watanabe Seitei.

I can't write you because everything's

wrong. Before dawn, crows swim

from the cedars: black coffee calls them down,

its bitter taste in my throat as they circle,

raucous, huge. Questions with no

place to land, they cruise yellow air

above crickets snapping

like struck matches. My house on fire, crows

are the smoke. You've never left me.

When you crossed the river you did not

call my name. I stood in tall grass

a long time, listening to birds

hidden in reeds, their intricate songs.

The grass will burn, the wrens,

the river and the rain that falls on it.

I can go nowhere else: everything

I cannot bear is here.

I must listen deeper. Sharpen my knife.

Something has changed the angles

of trees, their color. Do not wait to hear

from me. I cannot write to you

because this is what I will say.

From Slow Fire by Pamela Alexander. Copyright © 2007 by Pamela Alexander. 

Fly Tying: More Mice

Japanese print mice

Deer hair mouse

After this, the next photo of a mouse I post will be of one in the jaw of a Rocky Ford Rainbow.

"Snow-Flakes" By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From "Baika Jo = The Plum Blossom Album" Baikan Okada, 1808

Out of the bosom of the Air,

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

            Silent, and soft, and slow

            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

      In the white countenance confession,

            The troubled sky reveals

            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

            Now whispered and revealed

            To wood and field.

Momoyogusa = Flowers of a Hundred Generations

I found something beautiful among the NYPL Digital Collections. This is a book of prints by artist Sekka Kamisaka, published in 1909. There is something about the charm and simplicity of these images that captivates me. They provide a rewarding meditation on a gray January day. 

"Mandarin Ducks and Snow-Covered Reeds" by Paula Bohince

"Mandarin Ducks in Snow" Woodblock Print, Ohara Koson, 1935

When one dives, separate from her mate,

death is mere illusion.

She peers through water, assuring this.

When the crippled reeds rehabilitate, begin

their constant arc toward spring,

pain seems impossible. So distance. So change-

of-heart. From above or beneath, how

a body will twist, intuiting fear

and replacing it with here-ness, exhibit of

faithfulness. Wordlessly saying, Be not afraid,

Beloved, for the present exalts us!

Paula Bohince is the author of The Children and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods. She lives in Pennsylvania.

"Five Wishes" by Anne Porter

Kacho Fugetsu, Mid-nineteenth century, Meiji period, lithograph

I’d like to have a wild bird

Perch on my hand

A sparrow or

A chickadee

Sudden with her sharp feet

And fragile daring

I’d like to see again

The etchings Rembrandt made

Of stories from the Bible

Though they’re as plain

As Bethlehem’s hay

A radiance fills them

And I would like to visit

The Laguna Indians

And their old church

Made of whitewashed clay

With logs for rafters

And in it their Madonna

To whom they’ve given

A white lace apron

And I would like to learn

To accept my death

To accept our dying

That strange dawn

So deeply scandalous

That God himself wept

At the death of his friend

I’d like to find

The shrine of Chimayo

Where the lame leave crutches

I’d like to go there

With my daughter Katie

It would be enough

Just to be there

Without any miracle.

"Five Wishes" by Anne Porter from Living Things. © Zooland Books, 2006. 

Zennnnnnnnnnnn...

"River Trout" by Bakufu Ohno, 1937