What are you doing here, Crane?
In the mountains with your long legs and backwards knees?
Your head bobbing forward with each step,
we’re not used to birds like you.
The magpie is watching too,
before he goes on with his morning tea.
Thanks for coming
but I hope you can find your way home.
Tall crane wades the pond
he spears a perch and swallows.
Look out for gators!
Crane flower angular
wild orange purple mountainous with confidence
singular
Jutting calls Self
sunrise sacral chakra responds
disc delve
Create
fresh eloquence
joyed
Crane flower angular
sunrise sacral chakra responds
joyed ~
The sun squeezes through
like it almost missed the train--
late and blushing.
It lands on the windows
and suddenly the glass
looks alive.
A crane freezes mid-air,
caught staring at the light.
Clouds hang around…
undecided.
A door slides open.
Someone steps out
into the cool morning air.
Shadows move down the walls
as the light grows stronger.
The city comes awake
bit by bit…
quiet,
unhurried.
Crane
Autumn light
Soft moonlit shadows
Rippled at water's edge.
Dream
beak wedged in white noise
twigs of legs snow-plant
plumage in the air
body borne invisible
muse contemplates wholesome bird
folds in a napkin
paper crane come to life
memories of you
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
A descension of value bows night scenes,
the purple canopy edges its hoist,
spirits cool Platte River to lose its sheen,
Nebraskans wake to clarion fields voiced.
A loyal guest calls, it's the Sandhill Cranes,
dancing lessons, fields fattening corn orts,
pecking and choosing established campaigns.
Last state, go afoul, -- a date with the courts.
Locals aid their tally, most from afar,
It is nature's clock, all good things must end,
fly north to breed, and brood, and up to par,
A month's here, till next year, that's how the trend.
Awnings grey, triumphant stirs, the tension,
inspiring, crescendo ... the ascension.
Across the river there’s a crane
That’s 30 stories high,
The operator like
A Lego man up in the sky.
As loads are lifted in the air
And gently set in place,
I wish that I could clearly see
That operator’s face.
I know I would be terrified
But likely, he is not.
I cannot fathom how he even
Reached that sky-high spot.
Yet he is up there, hard at work
While safely down below,
I gaze at the construction site
And watch the building grow.
During the night, husks of buildings haunt the skies.
A hook hangs high a universe away.
It appears like a body - the way light lies.
Don’t do this anymore: make it day, make it day.
A swift gust would make the body fly.
Further and further and then something is missing.
Without the hook, a crane would but sigh.
Scale it please - the wind is listening.
There’s no need to fret just don’t hang.
He did that and now he explores the clouds.
Catch the northern wind with that familiar pang.
Now you can see how dull lights are through these shrouds.
In the place where you stand,
In an ocean of metal caskets,
Every inch is unmanned
Just for now. You’ll have to wait for the rackets.
If the chain around your neck is inevitable.
Then jump off and hear what he said.
Wind blows everything that is stable.
And then he’ll tell you that you can’t be dead.
You can’t be.
He’d never let that happen to me.
You crane, your neck
To follow
Our cash
You crane, your neck
To see were
It went
You crane, your neck
And know that
It’s trashed
They spend our checks
Pocket’s
Picked and spent
You crane, your head
When they say
Trust us
You crane, your head
For some
Truth to glean
You crane, your head
At blatant
Injustice
War zones turn red
From dollars
Once green
You crane, your neck
At their
Power schemes
You crane, your neck
To have
A say
You crane, your neck
At youth’s
Broken dreams
As the bombs wreck
Their light
Fades away
I have stood beneath your Bridge
and marveled at the music
being whispered in its wires.
I saw America flash pass
on your train riding west,
a kaleidoscopic rush of signs
knitted into a vision too large
to hold in one mind.
You drowned in its immensity.
Through the taut miles
of shuttling, the wind
still murmurs
your timeless prayers.
white modesty works
each day's food to procure craves ---
weathers worst, often
Did you ever work on a building site,
And push and pull with all of your might.
Then walk in mud up to your knee,
And whistle at every girl you see.
Did ever carry a hod on your shoulder,
Then trip over a blooming great boulder.
Watched a crane move a ton in one lift,
Then look over at the great pile of sand they've asked you to shift!
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