Haiku

                                                                        soft snow
                                                                        the cold floats down
                                                                        one flake at a time


                                                                        late winter cold
                                                                        long underwear
                                                                        frayed at the cuffs


                                                                        crackling in the air–
                                                                        on a frigid afternoon
                                                                        tea and ginger snaps
A Hundred Gourds
Daily Haiku
Chrysanthemum

Haibun

                                       

                                

                                                          
                                                                 A DAY IN JANUARY           

Today, I begin to remove the holiday decorations. Some have been part of my holiday celebrations since childhood, ornaments that I inherited when my parents passed away. Others are from my husband’s family. There are paper ornaments made by our children and grandchildren.  Ornaments from places we visited and from friends.

                                                                      bits and baubles

                                                                      wrapping the years

                                                                      in tissue

Haibun Today, December 2015

 

 

Haiga

Daily Haiga

Tanka Sequence

                                                               WHEN DISASTER COMES

                                                            (Hurricane Sandy, October 2012)

                                                                   snug in my home

                                                                   with after dinner coffee–

                                                                   is it luck or fate?

                                                                   that we are here not there

                                                                   with just each other and hope

                                                                 

                                                                    day after day                       

                                                                    the mundane things I do

                                                                    with barely a thought

                                                                    until I remember

                                                                    the speed in which life changes

                                                                    bleak images

                                                                    the fodder of nightmares

                                                                    the truth of now;

                                                                    helplessness prevails

                                                                    hopelessness bores deeper

      

                                                                     day becomes night

                                                                     and becomes day again

                                                                     with still no answer

                                                                     why some were chosen

                                                                     and others spared

                                                                     from home to market

                                                                     all my wants granted

                                                                     how easy to forget

                                                                     those with neither home nor food

                                                                     and only sky for shelter

                                                                     thanking God

                                                                     for keeping family safe,

                                                                     guilty with relief

                                                                     I accept each day

                                                                     as a slippery gift

Cattails, Jan. 2014

 



Tanka

                                                         this grip of cold
                                                         icy winds from the north
                                                         freezing all they touch
                                                         a time to recollect
                                                         the warmth of you in my life

                                                         the coldest month
                                                         each day a variation
                                                         on the theme of winter
                                                         I sense nuances of change
                                                         both in mind and body

                                                         frigid morning
                                                         my breath leaving traces...
                                                         vanishing
                                                         like memories of loved one
                                                         is the soul just a vapor?

Cattails
Kernels
Moonbathing

Haibun

                                                                                                        

                                                      A SWISS VILLAGE CHRISTMAS

On a Saturday before Christmas, Kris Kringle visits our village.  Tall and slender in a dark red suit, reminiscent of pictures on old European Christmas cards.  He carries oranges and peppermint sticks and lumps of coal.  The children wait quietly.  Well mannered, there is no pushing and no whining.   Their last chance to prove how good they have been. 

                                                             gently falling snow—

                                                             a child whispers to Kris Kringle

                                                             and holds out his hand

Holiday decorations are few.  Wreaths in shop windows or colored lights.  Nothing elaborate.  Snow provides the best decoration.  And the moon, illuminating snow covered fields and woods.

                                                              Christmas Eve—       

                                                              searching the stars

                                                              in a blue-black sky

                                                   

There is a midnight Mass, and the small wooden church is crowded.  The responses in prayer are smooth and in unison.  No laggards here.  We all sing or try to.  Familiar hymns in Latin or English become unfamiliar in French.  I hum along.

                                                               flickering candles—

                                                               the joy of Christmas

                                                               in a foreign tongue

Bottle Rockets, spring 2006 #14

Haiga

 A Hundred Gourds





Haibun

                  

                                                              ANOTHER WORLD  

Where do we go when we dream? Do we enter another world of unexplainable time, where past and present mingle?

 There is pleasure in seeing loved ones no longer alive, nostalgia and amazement in visiting places from my childhood.

                                                      summer porches

                                                      the nightly click of glasses

                                                      and neighborly talk

There is fear and anxiety as events unfold not as they happened, but jumbled and disastrous. Failure in school, missing the last bus at midnight, driving alone and hopelessly lost on a dark road, an intruder in the house. There is confusion when I appear as an adult with husband and family in my hometown. No one has died and the neighborhood is the same, only I have changed. What does it mean when I must walk in the ocean to reach my destination, drive along a road with a steep precipice on either side, walk barefoot and coatless in snow or climb mountains of mud? Where am I? Where do I go?

                                                   the trip back

                                                   on a foggy road

                                                   remembering nothing

Contemporary Haibun, Oct. 2014