butterball chickadee

a  small, butterball

black-capped chickadee

picks daintily at what seed

is left after other birds

have been at the birdseed tray

the sunrise fades pale orange

to gray behind him

as he breakfasts with genteel

unhurried manners

wake up call

black tea with chai powder

multi-grain toast

with a hint of honey

ah, that is the way

to wake up a morning

sunrise artisans

small, silvered tent covers

tilted between tufts of grass

sparkling with captured dew

bits boasting in dawn’s slant light

gone within hours as the day warmed

the work of spider artisans

hot air summer starting

Mt. Adams profiled by sunrise

Sol now farther north on my horizon

dawns still chilly but quickly warming

under the nation’s heat dome

of rancor, mistrust, and ill-will

pink snow

tint of pink light over the snow

like a filmy negligee over bared shoulder as sunrise hints

at change from full moon’s eerie blue-silver cast

i chuckle to remember tiny granddaughter’s declaration

of “pink snow” many springs ago

as we walked among blossoming plum trees

turning livid

 burnished, bruised orange and gold

oozing between layered purple clouds

resting for breath on the eastern horizon

over minutes, climbing, seeping mauves

capturing bluing sky and gray clouds

infuriating them with scarlet

reach to the heavens, livid for needing

to bleed the sunrise into day

permission granted

haiku

whiskered dawn stretches

languid on east’s horizon

allowing day’s start

doe in yard

so still, i missed her

twenty feet from me

legs tucked under

facing east, waiting

as i, for the morning

sun to grace and warm us

stoker

haiku

eight days of intense heat

relative cool of pre-dawn

quaffed by fireball sun

haiku 4/15/2022

 my world ice-slathered

tinted by night-indigo

awaits dawn and hope