Author name: ajh

Scrabbling for the last of the blueberries
bearberries, crowberries, crab-apple –
anything left of the dying autumn
to stock up your more than mountainous frame
copper sheen in a slanting sun
soon ready to curl up in a
bomb of a ball in a den.
…

He flies in ribbons like my hair undone
loosely in this arctic breeze
like a kite in the wind his long tail trailing
above melting icefloe, along costal freeze

Like a queen’s downy bed fluffed up for the loving
featherlace wings drifting aloft
they glide with the wind
two graceful lovers sweep over Cook Inlet
calling to the snowbound range.
It echoes back beckoning
they sway over scree
brittle legged…

It’s the call over still water
echoing round the bay of my mind
some yearning, undefined

A loon owns this lake
at dusk and at dawn reminding us
of things unresolved.

We row out to find him
smooth grey feathers impervious to rain.
King of …

This crack in your iceflesh thawing

like a crease in the mouth of your womb

you are melting in sighs

I hear breath and the wrench of the first opening

as you yield to the world’s warmi…

Razor clams here are the size of babies’ hands
opened up to catch the midnight sun.
They roll in with the tide and lie on sand
full and fleshy, their tumbling journey done.
Above, a Russian church, its golden dome
a gleaming refuge for those who…

Thrilling through basalt rock
gushing from ice-sea to moss-lined ravine
virginal water once channeled now spreads
in a calm sheenflow
wide her sweep across stone
silk-lace in layers, her wedding dress
in white folds descending
sunbeams celebra…