Monday, November 25, 2024

Birds at Twilight

A black murmuration
of starlings surged like a pepper
storm, shifting shapes
against a pallid blue sky at dusk.

And a slow
procession of flying crows
crossed just above
us, a little crowd of corvids

flapping casually
toward a roost in a fir tree.
We wondered
about the hedge sparrows

hunkering down,
and where do juncos nest?
At twilight, birds
move. They migrate from

light to dark.
We find we're rewarded
when we watch
them as often as we can.

hans ostrom 2024

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Wind Advisory

No, a "wind advisory" does
not mean a meteorologist
makes suggestions to wind
about its breezy business.

Here it means driven winds
coming East off the volcanically inclined
Cascade Mountains into easily
offended Puget Sound,

which usually hosts Pacific
winds from West, warm. Something
tonight will rattle, bang, or both
outside this dwelling. We

never can predict what. We'll
listen to the ragged rhythm,
the knocks and ticks, not get
up, wake to debris-filled dawn.


hans ostrom 2024

Reflected Reflections

Lamplight ricochets
off a bit of foil, enters
two eyes, appears in a
brain, in a mind.

Sunlight softly shines
through and on a window,
where two eyes see
themselves in a failnt face.

Here are mirrors and eyes,
illuminated blindness. Skies.
Wet heat in a gleaming greenhouse
rises. A reflecting mind apprises.

hans ostrom 2024

Monday, November 11, 2024

Undocumented immigrants pay $96 Billion in taxes per year

Seagul, Hawk, and Here We All Are

In a pounding but warm rainstorm,
I dropped off the weekly sack
of canned foot to the food bank
run by a church. A seagull
landed on the church's big cross
and shrieked. Translation?

"I like water!" or "Praise the
feathered Lord!" or "I'm a gull
and I like to scream!" On the way
home I spied a hawk sitting
in a gentelemanly way on a
power-line, watching cars go
by, waiting for an unwary squirrel
or the evening rabbit commute.

Yes, well, here we all are,
traveling another one of our days.

hans ostrom 2024

Angry, salty and nsfw!