Counting Words Release

Today, October 25 2024, marks the release of a new collection of poems from Stephen Brooke, "Counting Words." The book is  available from Arachis Press (arachispress.com) in print or as free ebooks (PDF and EPUB). Stop by and get your copy!

Wind-Wise, a poem

 Wind-Wise

I am not wind-wise nor do stars
  whisper secrets in my ear.

Count the clouds and say to me
  our dawn will come gray and rainy.

Should I doubt you? I am not wind-wise;
  let others look to the future.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Lentils, a poem

Lentils

Through windows obscured by evening’s frost
  I watch the gray ending of another day.
The trees have become their naked shadows;
  all the bird are long flown away.
Lentils slowly cook in the kitchen,
  with garlic and onions and green herbs.
Their fragrance fills my empty house;
  there is none here to share them.
They will warm my body this night
  but my heart is filled only with winter.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Pomegranates, a poem

 Pomegranates

Two pomegranates ripened by my door,
  dangling in the morning sun.
Share one with me now;
  the other will hang there still,
in the lengthening blue shadow
  of the house, when we return.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Not really a sijo, though it is somewhat in the form of one. I'm willing to simply call it a poem.