Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Haiku


cave echoes
my mistakes
come rushing back

receding tide
in the rocks
part of each wave

Frogpond, 2014
HSA Anthology 2015

Friday, December 15, 2017

Haibun

 
                                       FERN GLEN 

We park in the nature preserve near a path that leads downward. On our left is a pond edged with water lilies and lotus blossoms. Along the outer edge grow reeds and bulrushes.  A familiar sound causes us to turn towards it.

                               an ancient poem–
                               a pond, a frog, a splash
                               widening ripples
                               continue through the ages
                               a beginning with no end

A rustle in the reeds attracts our attention again. This time, it’s a painted turtle with a shell about six inches long, moving slowly toward the pond. After watching it quietly slide into the water, we begin our descent. The dirt path is rutted and peppered with loose stones.

                                 slow and steady
                                 helping each other
                                 to keep our balance;
                                 through long years of marriage
                                 there is still a garden

Low growing plants fill in the spaces between mature trees, the green enlivened by occasional clusters of small pink or white blossoms.  At the end of our descent is a thick growth of ferns in various sizes and species, from a single shoot of only a few inches to others two and three feet high and just as wide across.   

We’re the only ones here, but others have come before us. 

                                  a hidden Eden
                                  the songs of a coursing spring
                                  the chirring of birds
                                  a bench for the weary
                                  a place for body and soul

Haibun Today
Tanka Prose,
Dec. 2017

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Haiku


a quick flowing stream
in late afternoon
the hurried shadows




full moon
on my neighbor's porch
a new light



goldenrod
growing in abundance
a new restlessness

Presence 2015
Daily Haiku 2011
One Hundred Gourds 2012


Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Haibun

                                                                            
                                                                       Clean-up 

The autumn chores are complete. Plants cut back. The planting beds cleared of debris. Wood stacked by the back door. Container plants we want to save brought inside. Each year we ask:  how much longer can we do this? Each year we move more slowly; the clean-up takes longer; we have more aches afterwards. Knees, backs, shoulders–all complaining loudly. Each year we think about a condo.
                                                                       a sunny window–
                                                                       begonias inside
                                                                        a bee outside

 World Haiku Review

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Haiga









Haigaonline October 2017


Friday, October 20, 2017

Haibun


COFFEE - BLACK

A street empty of people. Just the all night diner is open. Plain, devoid of sentimentality.  A sickly greenish light streams through plate glass windows. A man sits smoking, his eyes looking straight ahead, expressionless.The woman with him appears more interested in a matchbook cover than in his company.

A third customer, a man alone with his back to us, his shoulders hunched. A faceless man in a gray suit. Behind the counter, a young man in a white uniform, a sharp contrast to the darkly dressed customers. He's busy with the dishes and appears to be speaking. Perhaps to himself. No one seems to be listening.
                                 

                                   Nighthawks—
                                   waiting the slow hours
                                   till morning
                                   
Contemporary Haibun Online, March 2007

Edward Hopper, "Night Hawks,"
courtesy of Wikimedia

Friday, October 6, 2017

Haiga:

Daily Haiga

Cattails

Daily Haiga

Friday, September 8, 2017

Senryu



road detour
turning off the GPS
to get lost






three hour fire log
romantic ambience
on a timer







antique car show
cool cars
hot prices

Living Senryu-
Cattails
Living Senryu


Sunday, August 20, 2017

Tanka Prose


MY COMEBACK ROSES 

We have a garden and I have become, by necessity, a gardener.  Our move to the country to a house with over an acre of land meant some gardening had to be done. With books, a spade, and the knowledgeable voice of a local nurseryman we plant shrubs, grasses, flowers.

                                                       dirt under my nails
                                                       I trade pink polish
                                                       for peonies
                                                       sweeter and longer lasting
                                                       than any manicure

Success with daisies, phlox, black-eyed susans, irises, spirea and many shrubs and annuals have swelled my head. I’m a gardener! I’ll plant roses next. Pooh on all the doubters who say they are hard to grow. The roses do well that summer and survive the harsh winter, leafing  up beautifully in the spring. Then, catastrophe. The leaves are full of pin holes and getting brown. Buds are shriveled. Aphids! That's what the nurseryman tells me.  I go on the attack, spray heavily and wait one week. Two weeks. One morning I see new leaves growing. By mid-July new buds have formed. I spray again and wait.

                                                         a rose bouquet
                                                         sprinkled with morning dew
                                                         in bare hands
                                                         ignoring the thorns and pricks
                                                         and fresh drops of blood
Haibun Today, June 2017


Thursday, August 10, 2017

Haiga






A Hundred Gourds

Friday, July 21, 2017

Haiku


fire-red lilies
a radiating heat
at sunset

between
the swelling sound of crickets
pressing heat

a misty beach walk
following the footprints
of gulls

Living Haiku Anthology
HSA Anthology 2002
Ambrosia

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Haiga





publish in Cattails


Friday, June 23, 2017

Tanka Prose



 BETWEEN THE BRICKS    
 
Poor inchworm. Back and forth across the tabletop. Down a table leg.  Halfway, it turns and climbs up again. Crosses the top once more to another leg.

                                                    there was a time
                                                    when I had to choose
                                                    love or adventure
                                                           was it luck or wisdom
                                                           that my choice gave me both?


The little worm takes a leap with its invisible thread, nearly reaching the bottom. Continues on, finally reaching the ground, crawls away. I lose sight of it when it disappears in a crack.

                                                   bird calls and wind
                                                   the shuffling of leaves 
                                                   the shuffling of time
                                                           what I did and did not do
                                                            and where I’ll be tomorrow  

Haibun Today, Tanka Prose,
March 2017

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Tanka


setting out plants
I take a chance this year
with something untried–
at my age even this
is an adventure

 

peonies bloom again
after trying to kill them
in ignorance;
what else have I lost
because of my not knowing?

Presence, autumn 2016
Ribbons, spring 2017

Monday, May 29, 2017

Haiku


                                                spring showers
                                                I peel a red onion
                                                in running water

                                                footprints on the floor
                                                beginning the mud season
                                                with a new mop

                                                 a perfumed breeze
                                                 shaking loose the moisture
                                                 from peonies

Presence
Under the Basho
Modern Haiku

Monday, May 22, 2017

Haibun


                                                      THE DINNER PARTY      

1. Getting Ready

 Mrs. Fraser is getting ready for dinner. A party of twelve. Very special (as always), designed to impress Mr. Fraser's colleagues and their wives.

 A black velvet dress clings to her slim figure. Diamond earrings and necklace.  Silver hair, coiffed in an up-do only her hairdresser can accomplish. She's almost ready.

From a dresser drawer, hidden in her silk lingerie, Mrs. Fraser takes out a silver flask and swallows long and slowly.  The liquid fires up her throat and her nerve.

                                                        a lone walker–
                                                        the night blooming jasmine
                                                        cast in shadow

 2. The Dinner

 Crystal glasses, English china, Belgian lace. A table set for royalty. Mrs. Fraser longingly gazes out the window. A summer night cries out for a barbeque, not caviar and squab; beer not Verve Clicquot.

 On her right is Mrs. Henry.

 Your grandson?  Precocious is he? Toilet trained in one week you say? Remarkable! Did you notify The Times?  Yes, I'm joking. Of course I'm joking.

 On her left is Judson Parker. She kicks his creeping foot away from hers.

 Yes, I agree. Desperate hunger in the world. Should all do our part.  I'll start now and pack up this dinner for the Homeless Mission downtown. What's that you say? A joke, yes. Just a joke.

                                                           bouquet of roses  
                                                           silky petals
                                                           fall with a touch

 3. Saying Good-bye

 Goodnight. Goodnight. Thank you. Lovely to see you.  Next week at the Henderson's? Can't wait to see their infinity pool. A restful view, I'm sure. Perhaps, I'll jump in and disappear into infinity. Yes. Yes. Another joke.

                                                             night voices
                                                             rumbles of thunder
                                                             before the deluge

 4. Lights Out

 Midnight. The house locked down. One more successful dinner. One more gold star. 

 Mrs. Fraser takes out the flask again and places a bottle of pills next to it.  She lines up the pills on her dresser. With slow deliberation her hand moves from pill to mouth to flask, from pill to mouth to flask, from pill to mouth to flask.

                                                           storm brewing
                                                           an owl's call
                                                           thrown to the wind

Modern Haiku, Oct. 2016 



Thursday, May 11, 2017

Haibun

                                                                                 
                                                                             FRIENDS

 
She was a bright student, Phi Beta Kappa.  Married before graduation.  Has her first child six months later.  Three more children follow in rapid succession.  She moves to a New England Coastal town and writes that she is happy.
 
She, with husband and children, move to Florence where he continues his art studies.
 
She writes that she is happy.
 
Upon their return she teaches high school English and writes that she is not happy.
 
She and the children move to a commune in California where she grows vegetables, bakes bread, has a lover, changes her name to Sunflower and writes that she is happy.
 
                                                                      dried roses
                                                                arranged in a vase
                                                                    for a second life
Lynx, 2011

Monday, May 8, 2017

Haiga




                                       




A Hundred Gourds

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Haibun


                                                              MOVING        

An old colonial house. Ours. Cleaned, painted, polished, scrubbed and repaired.  An object on display, a star on stage, ready for the public.  Ready to be someone else's home.

We wait, out of sight and out of hearing.  What do they think, these lookers, these pokers and prodders? Will someone see its charm as we did 29 years ago?  An old lady with a few idiosyncrasies. The sloping hallway, the creak in the dining room floor, the  leak above the side door when there is a drenching rain? Will the new family be forgiving and adjust to the old lady's habits and manners?  Another sweater when winds blow through loose windows, a pot under the leak.  This old lady has so much else to offer.

From a bedroom window, rolling fairways and fastidious greens on the golf course.  Lilacs and roses on warm breezes; the maple, a canopy of gold in autumn and the envy of Midas; the transformation of the land with fresh snow.  Birds, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, chipmunks, possums.  Residents and visitors, including the occasional deer and wild turkey.

 The walls will soon hear new stories and absorb new memories.  Will they echo with happy celebrations, crowded with children, grandchildren and friends? And, when it is time for the owners to move on, will they look back, as I am, and wonder what has happened to the years?

                                                          this morning the sun
                                                          glowing in the east-
                                                          later… the west


Haibun Today, April 18, 2008

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Haiku


river walk
the scent of lilacs
and fresh tar


our new home
neglected in and out
but for white lilacs

Kernels, summer 2013
3 Lights Gallery, Oct. 2008

Monday, April 17, 2017

Haibun

                           

                                                                 DINNER WITH THE FAMILY

He is 16.  Long hair and a pierced ear.  Baggy jeans and extra large tee shirt.  He is with his parents and grandparents.  They talk to each other, but not to him.  He sits apart and says nothing.  He is 16.

                                                                  darkness falls
                                                                  in the dense woods
                                                                  all that’s hidden

Contemporary Haibun On-Line,
Sept. 2009