The following poems are excerpted from Forty-Six Views of Montlake Fill (art © Hiroko Seki)
Down by the boathouse,
a poplar offers its branches
to sleepy cormorants.
Wake up, lazy birds!
It’s time to fish!
I already drank my coffee.
She has neither education nor money,
no conversation,
no waist even.
Drab, she blends into the background.
Her mate is enchanted.
So am I.
We, the jury, find Thistle guilty.
You are a noxious weed!
Nature acquits.
Weeds are flowers too,
as beautiful
as the hothouse rose.
Can birds hope?
The grebe builds her nest each year,
unable to see the future
or tell if her chicks will survive.
Yet there she sits.