White Space Speaks

white space speaks,
tells what was left behind...
the hands unpainted on the walls
of caves, were there
and are no more...
when we are gone,
will there be a painted presence,
some design of our days
left for those who come
after; some ghostly outline
of the creator left,
stark and unforgettable,
signaling by emptiness
the fullness that once was?

our lives like vessels
built of clay or glass
or leather-bound
grow up around us
day by day...
our deeds and thoughts
congeal in some contour
and then we're gone,
the vessel bleak and dry...
what shape remains?
could someone ages hence look
and reconstruct
what filled it to the brim?

wriggling free at last
a growing snake leaves his coat
instant hand-me-down

untitled haiku

January sun
eaves drip
white lines against the landscape

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bright sun
wind chimes move
without a sound

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cave bats hang head down
excrement corrodes upward
life in poop hollow

Fire (a cinquain)

Fire
my favorite theme,
joyous and self-contained,
winks a knowing eye and waits for
escape

Susan Murata

Risk

It isn’t risk that brings the Great
Blue Heron north
before it’s safe for him.
That last wet snowfall
blinds him, leaves him knock-kneed,
stranded in an icy stream
staring down his breakfast.
But it doesn’t mean a thing.
Don’t take to heart this change,
this sudden shift away
from how it’s all supposed to be.

Risk is only in the naming.
The Great Blue does as he has always:
flies north when the urge comes on,
knowing he will find his stream
his brackish tidal pond
and all those fish.
He can hardly wait to start.

I suppose he has a memory of what was
at his journey’s end in former years:
a nor’easter’s snarling face
spits snow and sleet and then
melts back into the sea.

If we would only do what we must -
do what our urges say -
how much less prey to fear of risk
we’d be, how much more
open to the bounty at the end:
foolish schools of racing minnows,
fat young frogs who close their eyes,
and lazy summer days at twilight
before the long and winged flight home.

Susan Murata

Midair at 60 Feet

I found it this morning early,
before the birds awoke,
before there was light from anything
except my clock.

I found that feeling this morning,
the one last felt aloft
in a sugar maple --
the tree I took as my own
when I was young.

Three stories high by the world’s
reckoning,
(but not as high as I could have climbed)
where the branch split
and forked in two
I wove a hammock from baling twine,
left over, looped and braided
to form a web,
a resilient woven bed in a widening V
that dipped and swayed in the wind
but always held.

I found it again this morning
the falling back into the arms
of my tree, my maple.
Nothing to do but give in to it
knowing that the V will hold,
the swaying will come
and go,
the branches will bend
and return.
I follow the wind’s lead
and my body softens

Such peace I found, such joy.
But even then, in autumn -
one half orange, one half green -
my tree was signaling distress. It died
by degrees
til only its stump remained,
peering through saplings
young and strong

I can hardly remember now
the vigor of its youth,
the strong wove bed where letting go,
surrender,
was an every day event.

As years have robbed the love of heights,
as turbulent winds blow through,
as life and loss keep us from climbing,
how joyous to reclaim
the memory of a strong young tree
and feeling safe
midair at 60 feet


Susan Murata