The Rosewood Bird

summer mornings

your whistled tune

a bridge

into wakefulness

the valley echoes

tying the kite

to the lilac hedge

to sail alone

all afternoon you fashion

tethered dreams

fragrant shavings

curl from the planer

the child fancies

manes and beards

for a plywood menagerie

the birds you made

feeding their young

and flying

somehow

on mahogany wings

shape engrained

already in the seed

your hands

that guide the chisel

at the lathe

fitting the brass lid

on the memory jug

blue and white crockery

shattered into shards

your scarred hands made whole

summer evenings

the glow of your cigarette

under the elms

your gaze

far down the river valley

still folded

in a trunk

the sweater I wore

the day I learned

what you had done

 Twenty Years Tanka Splendor, 2009 (AHA Books). 
Three-way tie for winning sequence in the 20th Tanka Splendor Awards Contest.