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 … More A Petal Moves––November, 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 … More The Fog Speaks –– October, 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 … More City of Forty Hills — September, 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 … More Red-tailed Hawk Night Vision Live Cam: 2:00 AM August, 2022 Featured Poem
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 … More Reproductive Choices Poetry Anthology
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 … More “If There Is No Other Shore” July,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 … More Secrets and Decisions, June, 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 … More Memorial Day, 1959 — May, 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 … More Narcissus — April, 2022 Featured Poem
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 … More Grandmother–Featured Poem for March, 2022
Heather Saunders Estes 