Hello,
After a decade of poems, and essays (some 430!), Crowswrite is going on hiatus.  I have recently discovered that any writing previously published, including on this blog, will not be accepted for publication in most magazines, anthologies, etc.  One of my goals is to share my work more broadly, so I will stop entries here, at least for a while, allowing me to submit new work elsewhere.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog.  I certainly have enjoyed the journey. And thanks for your interest and feedback.

For now, I am currently reviving my middle school novel, Crows, and editing a life long collection of poems and stories.  It is an exciting new "chapter" in my writing career.

If you wish to receive an occasional piece from me please contact me via text or email and I'll send you a poem or essay.  I promise not to send too much.

Meanwhile, keep reading and writing, and enjoy your time.

Best regards,
Peace,
Paul

Drawing

I can hear it.
The drumming and hammering
Upon a rotted-out branch.
Perhaps there is a juicy grub?
Or maybe the need to reach out to its own kind?
I’m here
I’m alive
Where are you?

My guess would be a downy woodpecker
I see them frequently
When they brace themselves against the odds
And grab a seed at the feeder, then flee
But today I only hear
Not see
Lost as it should be
Amidst the almond shaped leaves
And the avenues of grey-brown bark.

But the bird has served a silent purpose
Unwittingly
And innocently
It draws me away
From my cauldron of self
Which occasionally needs a good stir
I am looking up now
Not down
I am reaching out now and opened
Not inward and closed
Stretching and unlocking
Receptive to worlds awaiting.

Magic

The sailor sets off
Letting the tide run
As sailors always have
Pointing the bow into the horizon
Which then becomes his destination.

Ports of call being only minor irritations
Distractions, complications
No gps dictating
No one’s fault if he sails off the edge:
It’s his journey, spawned of dreams
And if he so chooses
(Or is so chosen)
His life
His death.
To disappear is his expression
No grave, no flowers.

Beholding then,
As night clinks dully against day & wears on it,
While dead stars persistently shine
Black holes ever drawing
Smoothing the edges
Razors yielding
Grinding on and on
Stardust to stardust.

The sailor is indifferently cast in his part
Bearing his fruits
As tears of terror and wonder
Shore to unknown shore
Scorched by searing cauldrons
Frozen in place by the distances he has come
And his dark destinations
No charts can pretend to predict.

Only the whales can tell and lead
Its their magic.
Listen to their call:
There is only magic.

What Makes You Happy?

What makes you happy?
What cup of steaming morning brew
What weathered hand gently held
What nubile leaf or garden sprout
What laugh cascading through the trees
What waft of fresh spring early air
What downy pair of woolly socks
What baby’s breath upon your shoulder
What fresh cut grass
What distant thunder
What moment lost and then regained
What friend arriving unannounced
What day fulfilled
What night so deep
What word what way
What makes you happy?

-P. Sanderson

Rabbit Reverie

Rabbit Reverie

I can’t help but wonder
Coffee in hand
What the whitetail thinks.
Submerged in a patch of hop clover
Sharing it with the morning bees,
Is it lost in the wonder of such fortune?

It looks to think it is invisible
In its solitary motionless meditation
Hunkered down, vanished in the moment
Unseen to predators
As a mound of grey and white.

Does it retreat deep into itself
In a quiet reverie
Still in its own reality
Still as it knows to be
A practice tried and true?

And then in an instant of its wise choosing
It breaks from its retreat with a twitch of the nose,
Lifts a clover from the ground
And chews.

-P.Sanderson

The Bear

 I know there is a bear out there
Although I have never seen it.
My part-time inner sleuth
Has been busily sifting through the clues
Ever since my neighbor Susan put that image in play.
She said, as casually as one can talk about a bear,
“Did you hear about the black bear that was seen
Down the street?  Ya, the folks at Adam’s Garden of Eden spotted it.
Six feet tall.  Pretty big.  Ya.”
This moment, these thoughts
Were like dumping the contents
Of a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table.
Let the games begin!
Clue one, and the biggest piece so far: 
My bird feeders have been emptied overnight
For the past week or so.  Especially the suet.
If I was a bear, the feeder food seems like an open invitation.
Midnight snack, come and get it!
Rendered fat and sunflower seeds, so tempting!
For several days I have been secretly accusing raccoons
Those midnight ramblers
Those masked banditos
So maybe they can be on my suspect list.
But how could they reach the suet, strung from a cable
Hung from a high branch?
About six feet off the ground?
I thought I was clever
Until recently.
But now the bear has been placed in the suspect lineup.
Excuse me, number 4, Mr. Black Bear,
Would you mind standing on your hind feet
And reaching up?
Ah! See?
Mr. Bear could reach the suet, for sure!
But how to prove it,
Where’s the evidence?
No witnesses
No tracks on the ground
No hair or scat.
I needed to catch him in the act.
“What you need is one of those infrared trail cameras
Like hunters use,” my friend Karen suggested.
Hmmm.  Maybe, just maybe.  
They have used those to take all the crystal clear
Photos that we’ve seen of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, right?
Right?
So off to Amazon Prime I go.
All hail Amazon for the work they do
In supporting our dreams and nightmares
Of monsters and mythical creatures
And maybe even bears in our backyards.
So my trail camera is on its way, shipped one day
And tomorrow night
When the moon is low, I’ll know:
Do black bears still roam
Sucking suet feeders dry?
And stirring my imagination?
While giving me more than a moment pause
To puzzle and ponder and wonder wild.
Tomorrow after dark, I may know.