David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

The River's Pulse: Fifty-Two Haiku Weeks Along the Farmington (part 3: May)

May

persistent fish leap
and fall back to milky foam
a concrete dam holds

loud rubber band twangs
join gurgling trills from floodplains
food and sex and space

haze of red maple
buds blush where roots are liquored
fire burns in wet places

spears and nets caught
native feasts slowed at rapids
shadows still appear

cloud reflections swim
with fish in glassy water
heaven has fallen

A couple blocks from my home, the Farmington River is the largest tributary of the Connecticut.  From Tinker's Damn, Homebound Publications, 2013,http://homeboundpublications.com/store/books/tinkers-damn/

Stepping Up to No Place

Welcome to nowhere!  Whether of concrete, stone or other materials, steps to a building are an  invitation to visit.  But more than we commonly think, steps sometimes lead to nowhere, to a place that has become no place.

Walking in the woods or driving through the country, suburbs or city, I look for and find steps that haven’t been trod by a human soul in a long time.  Often they are obscured by leaves, sticks and litter.  Shrouded in snow during winter and hidden by vegetation in summer, they have a narrow window of visibility, like an entry to Brigadoon.