This is the season, spring-to-be-summer, when I wrote this poem. I hope you join me to appreciate the many flowers that are sometimes called weeds. We must plant and conserve more native bushes and flowers as the lives of our bees, butterflies, and birds depend on them. Thank you for reading my poetry. Abundant Forgiveness…
Jasmine Tea: April, 2023 Featured Poem
This poem is a favorite of mine and also appears in my newest book All in Measure: A Book of Hours-2020-2023. Morning tea is a ritual part of my morning. Cloistered in the house during the pandemic, the act of making tea allowed me to travel in my imagination and never failed to bring me…
Composition of Storm: March, 2023 Featured Poem
These atmospheric river storms just keep on happening. The poems keep on coming. This was from the storm a couple of weeks ago. The poem is new and might change form eventually. I need to sit with it for longer. We had storm wind force water in under our patio doors to leak on the…
Rain –– February, 2023 Featured Poem
And it is still raining! In January I was so busy editing my new book All in Measure: A Book of Hours, 2020-2022 I missed posting a poem. Yet another storm is passing through the Bay Area. Snow on unexpected hills. Even more trees uprooted or branches broken. When we first moved here, California the…
All in Measure: A Book of Hours, 2020-2022 My Newest book AVAILABLE NOW
I am delighted to announce that my book is now live on Amazon and Kindle and available through your local bookstore! Published by Blue Light Press. It is inspired by the tradition of praise and contemplation found in the medieval Books of Hours. As the four of us shelter-in-place during the waves of the COVID…
Turning Seventy — December, 2022 Featured Poem
I hope you are having happy holidays. This is a special time time with family and friends, past and present. My birthday was a big one this year! Of course, a poem. I wish for you and yours a marvelous New Year and for the world, a year of peace and justice. Thank you for…
A Petal Moves––November, 2022 Featured Poem
This is a season when people bring bouquets to hosts and hostesses. This was an unexpected and delightful gift from our housemate. Happy Holiday season to you all! A Petal Moves, Then Another She brought me flowers,a bouquet of fuchsia anemones.Elegant stems covered in soft downlengthen up to ferny ruffs framing faceslike a cluster of…
The Fog Speaks –– October, 2022 Featured Poem
Growing up in New England, over 50 miles from the ocean, fog was rare and exotic weather when I was growing up. My Dad would tell me about the pea soup fog in London and I imagined getting lost. Living in San Francisco, 2 miles from the ocean fog is a very frequent visitor and…
City of Forty Hills — September, 2022 Featured Poem
I am hoping this will appear in my third poetry book which is currently in the editing process. This poem is in a loose version of a haibun. The great Japanese poet Matsuo Basho wrote many haibuns. This form is composed of a short prose piece followed by a haiku. I went down a delightful…
Reproductive Choices Poetry Anthology
Dear Friends–So much sound and fury is spent on the politics of controlling the bodies of others. This is a timely book, coming out before the elections, that might make it possible for some actual listening to real people dealing with complexities of being human. Please look for it when it comes out. I believe…
“If There Is No Other Shore” July,2022 Featured Poem
This poem was inspired by a line from ” On Prayer” by Czeslaw Milosz. He was a marvelous Nobel Prize-winning Polish-American Poet. My parents grew up with summers on Long Island Sound. When getting ready to retire, they bought a sailboat. Mom felt that the salt water could cure anything. I visited and sailed with…
Secrets and Decisions, June, 2022 Featured Poem
This was a very bad week for individual rights, respect and kindness and for all of us who care about bodily autonomy, privacy, public health, equity, and justice for women, LGBTQIAA people and those with limited access to health care. As many of you know, I was the head of a regional Planned Parenthood for…
Memorial Day, 1959 — May, 2022 Featured Poem
I have many memories of the Massachusetts town where I grew up. This memoir poem seems quite appropriate for today. Memorial Day, 1959 The man was huge, his horse gigantic,a living, heroic bronze with a clerical collar.The Reverend Headmaster of the local Prep Schoolheaded the small town parade.His bald head mirrored the bright sun. My…
Narcissus — April, 2022 Featured Poem
It is still spring here in San Francisco. My mother taught me how to “force” bulbs, and to bring in sprays of forsythia which she left in the cloisonne vase on the piano to develop buds and bright yellow cascades of flowers. I think of her in spring and her love of flowers. Even in…
Grandmother–Featured Poem for March, 2022
Many of us have lived with or still enjoy old dogs. I remember my childhood dog, India, with this poem. If you had not heard, there are more dogs than children in San Francisco. I see a bunch of them out my window at the park all day. Sometimes they come at late dusk or…
CLOUDBREAK is Available Now!
Poetic Matrix Press has published my second book, CLOUDBREAK. This book of poetry covers what brought me to my work with social justice and reproductive health, and how I transitioned, after 37 years, to writing. I would love to have you read my book. Thank you to my reviewers, friends, family, teachers, editor and the…
Inner Sunset also on Kindle
I buy many books of poetry for the pleasure of reading and to support my fellow poets. At least 50% of the books I buy are Kindle. I am running out of space in my house and also love reading poetry when I am at Farley’s in San Francisco or Broadway Coffee in Sacramento. I…
Red-tailed Hawk Night Vision Live Cam: 2:00 AM August, 2022 Featured Poem
I don’t know how many of you ever watch the live cameras. In the Bay Area I have watched the osprey nest on the Richmond Bridge, the peregrine falcon cam on the UC Berkeley Campus, and this live camera on the grounds of the Presidio in San Francisco. Internationally, there are so many more live…
Heather Saunders Estes 