Richard Stevenson
Richard Stevenson is a Canadian poet, currently living
and teaching in Lethbridge in southern Alberta. He has published
13 books and has two more forthcoming. He published his first collection
of haiku, senryu, and tanka -- a collection of work set in West Africa
called Hot Flashes (Ekstasis Editions) in 2001; his second, a collection
entitled A Tidings of Magpies, set in southern Alberta and the interior
and west coast of British Columbia is forthcoming from Spotted Cow
Press in Edmonton. Other haiku, senryu, and tanka have appeared in
World Haiku Review, American Tanka, Short Stuff, Haiku Light, Lynx,
etc. and in a new collection he's just completed called A Charm of
Finches that Ekstasis is currently considering.
a raucous squabble --
cacaphony of crow caws
and magpie squawks --
still the flicker's shrill retort
holds the upper branch and scale
at your father's grave
Spanish moss-covered oaks --
I remember his
beard changed colour after
the chemotherapy
flickering blue light --
distant campfire beckoning?
no, big screen t.v.
across the street, up the hill,
screened by a curtain of firs
Same gesture it seems:
you holding your wedding train
to climb outdoor steps
and the way cedar trees here
let leaves drape from their branches
after so many
gardening vendor pitches
wanting to walk to
the finger-like breakwater
to look for purple starfish
on the telephone
you relay news of her death --
a rare hummingbird
suddenly flies into view,
stays for hours in your back yard
all night long the geese
gabble at one another
round the frozen shore --
flight itinerary plans
or just chanting to stay high?
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