Haiku and Tanka for Shrike

by David Budbill

Two hundred years ago and

half the world away Issa said:

His patience expired,

from high in his treetop

the old shrike cries.

Again. Here. Today.

All morning the shrike

waited in the apple tree

for a chickadee

to forget. Then he, fed up,

so to speak, went on his way.

From Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse, Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1999, page 85.