Garden Gifts

by elehna de sousa and Michael Dylan Welch

First published in Haiku Canada Review 2:2, October 2008, page 41.

mid-summer

weeding—

the gift of a snakeskin elehna

red maple leaves blow

through the new iron gate Michael

dappled light . . .

a mouse scurries

under a rock elehna

the sound

the neighbour boy makes

along our white picket fence Michael

a layer of frost

across the fish pond elehna

escaping the net,

the garden’s

first butterfly Michael