There is chop and spurt and flurry, a bifurcated frenzy, then lull. This one, head free, flaps from the hatchet block to a nest she makes calmly in the grass, near the garden, and while her draining eyes watch from the pile where they’ve fallen, lays her last, perfect egg, though the shell, still soft, won’t harden.

overnight ice
puddles pocked with breakthrough

—First appeared in Modern Haiku; republished by author’s permission

Bio: Charles Hansmann