Haiga Stories

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          CAPE COD

  

Early evening, the back yard of a summer cottage.  I am alone, except for the hidden life under the porch, in trees and bushes and in a shallow ravine of wild grapevines,

 

Cloudy and cool, the air heavy with damp. Chipmunks dart from under the porch into the bushes and back. A small rabbit, like part of a magician's trick, suddenly appears on the grass munching clover. Just a handful of softness. 

 

On a low pine branch, a plump robin.  His orange breast brightly visible in the graying dusk. Sleek and lordly, he turns his head, gives a few whistles, flies down to peck in the grass, then back to the branch.  Again and again, the same procedure.  This is my territory his call seems to say.  My branch. 

 

Crows, starlings, a pair of blue jays and a pair of cardinals.  In and out of trees, in and out of the ravine. A sparrow inspects the brick patio, then hops away.  More robins. Too many and too fast to identify which call comes from which bird, except for the lordly robin back on the pine branch.

 

Damper now, and colder. Mosquitoes find my bare legs. Still, I remain. There are fireflies, signaling from the ravine, the wind speaking to me through the trees, the thin, gray light not yet gone in the west . 

 

                                                            a country night–

                                                            slowly the quiet

                                                            wraps me inside

 

Nisqually Delta Review

Haiku: Trees in Bloom

white dogwood

giving the abandoned church

a new roof

a  scruffy lawn

jacaranda blossoms

fill the bare spots

heavy rain

collecting cherry blossoms

with each step

World Haiku Review

World Haiku Review

Hokku

Haiga

Haigaonline
 

Haibun

                                                                 Breaking Away…or Not      

 

I cannot ride a bike.  A bad fall as a child pushed my wish to learn off the horizon.  Once every decade or so a hazy desire returns, spurred on by family, only to vanish after another fall or near fall.  I envision a fractured hip, broken collar bone, concussion, full body cast.  Now in my  seventh decade spring has again stirred an unnatural wish to defy gravity and climb in the saddle.

 

But wait… Are those rain clouds moving across the horizon?  Storm clouds bringing thunder and lightning? 

 

Ride a bike?  No thank you.  I’d rather walk.

 

                                                                  yellow flowers

                                                                  drawing me down

                                                                  for a closer look

Moonset  

Tanka

                                                     scraggly pines

                                                     uneven branches

                                                     against pink clouds

                                                          with advancing time

                                                          my changing perceptions

Ribbons

Haibun

The Condos at the end of the Cul-de-Sac    

 

“See you at the mail box,” I say to my friends when we speak on the phone. Neighbors we are, one on my left, one on my right, three widows, with me in the middle sharing a condo wall with each.  The Merry Widows. Or we were.

 

a little tipsy

senior decorum slips

with a bawdy tale

 

Lunches, dinners, shopping. Impromptu gatherings for coffee with freshly baked cookies. All that was before. Before our advanced years and vulnerability made us cautious, made us retreat and pull back, keeping our contacts to the essentials. We keep in touch by phone and emails, gripe, worry, encourage. On occasion we meet outside at the mailboxes, short meetings, voices raised  so as to hear words spoken at a distance and through a mask. 

 

“What’s new? Saw the doctor. Ordered online. Catch you tomorrow.”

 

 It’s not enough, but we endure and hope. I collect my mail and retreat, but with a lighter step.

 

slow cooker

for one or a dozen

it’s about the wait

FAILED HAIKU