I.
mountain streams flow down
into each other
out of their sounds
–Buson
High above the fray and clatter, a mountain
stands and waits. Every day her streams
carry bits of her away with their flow—
gravel, dead leaves, newly-hatched smolt—down
her slopes, carried to the river, eventually into
the ocean. Their burdens sink into the deep. Each
tiny salmon competes with all the other
fishes, consumes its way to adulthood. Then swims out
of the salt and finds a fresh outflow with the scent of
its birthplace. The returning ones flip their
fins against the flow, back to mountain water sounds.
II.
a cicada shell
it sang itself
utterly away
-Bashō
Having spent years—a
first life—underground, the cicada
climbed up into another. Hardened shell
of the past split, and through the crack it
emerged, shimmied into wings, and sang
a shrieking sort of psalm to itself
and the short time left—utterly
dedicated to love. Its din fades away.
III.
the pond has dried up
to a warped board
under the new moon
– Buson
Leaves and warblers are gone from the
trees. There is a skin of ice on the pond.
Only a memory, water in the acequia has
drained south to the river. Ristras clatter, dried
the color of old blood. A wind has come up
in a rush. Tumbleweeds piled at coyote fences try to
escape and returning flocks of crows convene a
cacophony in the bosque. Southbound, the warped
and wild cries of sandhill cranes greet me as I board
up the garden shed for winter, shivering under
a sharp blue sky. Beneath a compost of leaves, the
seeds of milkweed and datura slumber, new
dreams wait behind the sleeping eye of the moon.
—golden shovel series after haiku masters Buson, Bashō,
Buson respectively
Janet Ruth
Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist/poet. Poems in journals and anthologies including The Nature of Our Times (2025). Her winning sonnet, “A World That Shimmers,” was set to music and performed by True Concord Voices in 2023. Her book, Feathered Dreams, was Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/