This poem is from last year’s run of storms. Since we are between gusts of wind as I type this it seems timely! My Japanese maple and adolescent kumquat trees in pots blew over last night but I have propped them up and gave them other plant friends to huddle with in preparation for tonight. … More The Atmospheric Rivers: San Francisco Featured Poem, December, 2025
Happy Friends-Giving and Happy Thanksgiving and simultaneously – National Day of Morning to commemorate the ignoble history of massacres, disease, and theft of Native lands by European settlers. Important we acknowledge this truth. There is also true that love, family, friends and celebration of harvest are central to our histories and our lives. We find … More Dog Park: Featured Poem, November, 2025
It is almost October and I start looking for our annual bats. This is a little early for Halloween but I thought you might enjoy this poem. In other news, I am working on my fourth poetry book! Hope to have it out in 2026. The working title is Cadence, or possibly Crosswinds or Lexicon … More Dreams of Bats: September, 2025 Featured Poem
Happy New Year my friends! My husband and I spend time planning our objectives and goals for the new year during this time It is kind of like a date! We have been doing it for decades. We have seen plans and policies, personal and political, come and go. So I am in the mood … More A New Year – 2023: December, 2024 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 have become enchanted by movie trailers and narrative poems. Trailers and some microfiction stories are tasty bonbons or truffles of story. I can’t stop reading or watching. Diane Frank taught a class on flash fiction that challenged me in all the right ways. I hope this tiny story of mine catches your imagination. Pirouette … More Pirouette – Featured Flash Fiction September, 2021
Already 2020! I particularly like this little poem. It was inspired by an experience in my San Francisco garden. I guess I am already thinking of spring and my hyacinths are beginning to show green above the ground (yes I planted them a bit late.) It also reminds me of snorkel diving at night in … More Featured Poem: January, 2020
Chimney Raven It croaks twice, sounding deep in my chimney.Pitching my voice to raven guttural,I mimic the call.Its claws scrabbling on the metal flueit caws and awks two times more.I try again, just one croak. I receivesilence.Silence. The next day, the bird declaims againfrom a perch on the neighbor’s roofwhere it sips from a puddle … More Featured Poem: December, 2019
This poem is from the fire season last year, and next year. Diablo Winds The sky’s bruised flesh, apricot with a haze of green. Smoky, harsh air a cataract over the hills. Bristlecone and Bishop pines inseminate the ash-covered ground.
This poem was just published in the Fall edition of Vistas and Byways. This edition has a special section on Music and they choose this poem. Vistas and Byways the literature review by members of the San Francisco State OLLI program. They introduced it this way… “This frank poem describes how the author overcame inhibition … More Featured Poem: October, 2019
Heather Saunders Estes 