Careless Mice

I've spent the evening with a wonderful book I recently acquired:

The Gift of Tongues; twenty-five years of poetry from Copper Canyon Press, 1996.

I have not even begun to experience everything herein yet,
and will talk more about this treasure-filled book later!

I chose this picture of winter in Michigan several years back
to go with the John Haines poem below.

If the Owl Calls Again

at dusk

from the island in the river,

and it's not too cold,

I'll wait for the moon

to rise,

and then take wing and glide

to meet him.

We will not speak,

but hooded against the frost

soar above

the alder flats, searching

with tawny eyes.

And then we'll sit 

in the shadowy spruce and

pick the bones

of careless mice,

while the long moon drifts

toward Asia

and the river mutters

in its icy bed.

And when morning climbs

the limbs

we'll part without a sound,

fulfilled, floating

homeward as the 
cold world awakens.

John Haines  (1924-2011)

from The Gift of Tongues; 

twenty-five years of poetry from Copper Canyon Press, 1996, page 111.

Pay attention to the form: very short-line clean stanzas in a pattern 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3. Examine your own poems for stanza patterns.

Here is a link to this excellent poet!