Dawn
(after Ruth Dallas)
 

Hardly surprising when
a Southern poet
breathes the air of the Orient

talks with nature’s tongue
of the nature of people. 
Her sun rises over eastern seas

sheds the day slowly,
speaks its mind sparingly
(the long rough voice

of a Southland farmer
calling to his son -
“Don’t forget to close the gate.”)

Hardly surprising, then, that
a haiku is not a rule
but a release:

an old woman
rests in a large chair -
her last book launch