A small mushroom on the winter ground caught my eye today, leaning toward a thin slice of sun and reminding me how even the smallest things reach for warmth.
Reaching for the Sun (a Haiku)
Sitting on cold ground
Reaching for the winter sun
Spores falling earthward
When the warmth leans in
let the music rise with the winter light.
Ivor Steven © June 2026
In the soft morning blue, the half‑moon lingers as a gentle witness, watching the wattlebird rise into its own wide freedom.
The Moon and the Wattlebird (a Tanka)
Even the half moon
Selflessly watches you fly
Toward the deep sky
There, within your winged freedom
You will never be alone
Under the half‑moon’s gentle watch, wherever the flight leads, every journey carries a presence that walks beside it.
Ivor Steven © June 2026
“In this place of darkness and malediction we can but stand in awe and remember its stateless, faceless and nameless victims. Close your eyes and look: endless nocturnal processions are converging here, and here it is always night. Here heaven and earth are on fire.” — Elie Wiesel
A reminder that even in a world shadowed by sorrow, the night still offers its quieter lights — small, celestial gestures that help us keep looking up.
Two Heavenly Lights
I’m a sucker for a crescent moon,
and there below his silver spoon
on this cloudy wintry night
I espied another bright light —
a vision unexpectedly imbued,
sidling toward the glowing moon.
Venus, elegantly blushing with attractiveness,
and the moon beaming with handsomeness —
two twinkling heavenly lights
coyly conversing through the veil of night.
Ivor Steven © June 2026
Over at Weekly Prompts, the Colour Challenge for March is Yellow. To visit their fabulous site, please click >> Here.
My Courtyard’s Sunflowers
The sunflowers sway and say hello
Always happy and politely mellow
And never ever bellow
Like that orange badfellow
They are my garden’s yellow-cello’s
Ivor Steven © March 2026
Some places invite you to step sideways into another world. Smythesdale is one of them. This poem wanders from the paddocks into a quiet, cosmic holiday — best read with M83’s Un Nouveau Soleil rising gently underneath.
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Rustic Smythesdale
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Here, where the country paddocks
beam at you through the bedroom window,
grazing kangaroos curiously look your way
and front-yard elephants laze in the shade
of the friendly eucalyptus tree.
I’m untethering my Itmims space craft,
and there’s an aurora lighthouse
to guide the ship around the Cape Of Good Hope
on toward the great passage in the sky.
I’m not saying goodbye, but having a holiday
in the western zone of my rural universe.
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Ivor Steven (c) December 2025
“Like the wattlebird, I dare to break the shell— to sing loud in the wind, to rise with the light.”
Ivor Steven (c) October 2025
White Roof
Travelling through the Rocky’s towers
I witnessed living proof
Of Nature’s palatial power
Her white-draped congregation stood
Silent beneath the glacial hood,
Bedazzled by the alpine’s might
Ivor Steven (c) September 2025
My cousin Lynn, ask me, “would you like to go to museum, or go and have a picnic down by the ocean at Saxe Point Park” …
The lovely picnic area at the waterside park
The picturesque Saxe Point Park
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Ivor Steven (c) September 2025
Late Monday morning. After visiting the incredible Kinsol Trestle, it was time to board the Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay ferry, and then drive back to cousin Lynn’s place in North Saanich.
On the ferry from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay with Penny and Dave
Senanus Island and approaching Brentwood Bay.
After lunch at Lynn’s place in North Saanich, it was a fond farewell to Penny and Dave, who headed back to Duncan and Maple Bay (Mount Tzouhalen) …
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Ivor Steven (c) September 2025
The traditional towering totems of the Cowichan Tribe in Duncan
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Duncan’s Totem Trail
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Follow the footsteps
Around Duncan’s Totem trail
Cowichan stories
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Ivor Steven (c) September 2025
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 