Haiku

                                     tree lined Main Street
                                     on this summer afternoon
                                     only the air moves
                                    
                                      hot and humid
                                      another day
                                      dripping summer

                                      sticky heat
                                      at the family dinner
                                      a pot boils over

Pipe Dreams, 9/26/2011
A Hundred Gourds, 9/2012

Presence, Summer 2013

Tanka

                                                  each day
                                                  taking me closer
                                                  to the horizon;
                                                  I try to slow the trip
                                                  with exercise and vitamins

Tanka Cafe
Ribbons, summer 2012

Haibun

                                                    ABANDONED 

There is an almost tangible sadness about abandoned buildings.  Up here in the mid-Hudson Valley, one sees, in the midst of healthy farms and vibrant villages, far too many.

There is the old Bennett College for Women, closed since 1970 and left to the persistent attacks by nature with no counterattacks by man.  Built in the Adirondack style of country lodges.  Rough wood and stone.  Rambling, with several porches and chimneys.  Now, a crumbling ghost at the entrance to the village.

On a road, near a thriving dairy farm, are the remains of another farm.  House, barn, stable, silo, hay rick and other out-buildings.  Down to bare wood, with some shadowy hints of red and white paint.  A rusting tractor with plow attached. Barren fields, mud soaked and weed thick.

An empty store front, Quality Antiques, missing the Q and the A, the other letters still faintly visible on the window.   A Victorian house, windows boarded, porch sagging, chimney bricks blown to the ground, a garden of stubble.

What happened to the people who once filled these buildings? Was it death, financial problems, poor health or simply bad luck that caused their departure?
 

                                               new spring grass
                                                growing each day
                                                the dreams of youth

Published, Contemporary Haibun On-Line, June 2008

Henry, a Hudson Valley Journal, May 2011

Haiku

Haiku Reality, Dec. 2010
Ambrosia, Aug. 2010
Stylus Poetry Journal, Jan. 2009

Tanka

                                                     hay bales
                                                     in a sun-drenched field
                                                     goldenrod waving;
                                                     we pass it by knowing
                                                     tomorrow will bring changes

Kernels, #  1 April 2013