The Rose of Night

Last night’s moonrise… I set these few minutes into sonnet-form just now.

Night Rose

Last night I watched the moon in her ascent.
Voluptuously round, the rim that rose
(How like the opening of a rose, that throws
Its petals outward to the light), light pent
Behind night-blackened mountain crest, that bent
The moon’s edge from the round. Its prose
Of rock found no voice of its own, its throes
Seen only in the spilling saffron spent
Unshattered on the rough time-shattered clast
That could not mar the saffron rose of night.
How far away the splendor of that light–
The granite cliffs stood powerless, aghast,
And vanished, vanquished, in the midnight vast,
While moon unfurled the garden of her flight.

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Following on from my last post, I am happy to announce the impending arrival of my minuscule volume A Thousand Small Wings/and Other Haiku of Things/ Too Brief to Notice.

From the introduction:

This slender collection of tiny poems is a miniature window.  It looks out on the Sonoran Desert–at least my small patch of it.  This is rough, foothills country full of old growth mesquite, populated with venerable saguaro cacti and baby birds, with rattlesnakes and butterflies, hummingbirds and monsoon downpours, and of course the ever-present sun.…

And from the promotional on Lulu…

This small volume is a window of passing moments in the desert country. Each haiku shows us a vignette or a tiny narrative, teeming with all sorts of characters, from the wind and the moon to doves and crickets.

Here on Substack, I will be offering a special price—$9 plus shipping—for a signed copy. This is a tiny, pocketbook-sized volume, and only 41 pages long, but it is at last ready to greet the wider world. I have two more collections of poetry almost ready… almost… ready. But of the group, this is the first to arrive at completion.

By next week, I shall (I firmly believe) have worked out how to set up this special sale for my Substack readers. As we all know, these processes are generally more fidgety than expected!

Meantime, all the best from the wilds of Arizona!

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