three small birds
rising up from out the bush
quiet as butterflies
both touching my heart and escaping it
like three small poems

This poem written this morning after a sunless, September walk with the dog--the nearness of these birds, their grace and stillness so raw, so meaningful, yet so beyond words. Often, I like to think I am so present, so in the moment and aware of the world around me, and then, it just catches me, by surprise. Out of nowhere, something so small, something I hadn't counted on just comes to me, like a little gift from god, so that I am touched, literally, somewhere in my soul, like god quickly stroking a feather across it, and I feel, in that single instant, one with the world around me, so that I'm left with this feeling of knowing both everything and nothing.

Maybe that was a little deep for a blog entry--but these are the experiences that my tanka come from--they are the rawest of moments, the smallest, seemingly insignificant at times--moments of deep insight, even if I'm not all together certain what that insight is.

For me, this moment, as consequently, this poem, come on a day where I am doubting myself and my poetry. Leafing through bundles of poems this morning, trying to choose a handful for submission, and finally giving up, certain that they are all rubbish, that none actually capture what I had meant--and then this experience--this small little encounter with the quiet angel-like birds, and I know in my heart that I must scribble poems, and that these poems must have some small place in this world, just like the birds that came so near my soul this September morning.