Announcement: My published books of haiku, tanka, haibun and tanka prose are available on cyberwit.com and Amazon
Friday, July 24, 2026
Friday, July 17, 2026
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Haibun
Nirvana
Hot dogs, burgers, fries, cotton candy, pop corn, and ice cream. Summer food at Savin Rock, the amusement park. After eating, always sticky hands and smeared faces , and, sometimes, a stomach ache. The best of all these treats was found in only one place at the far end .
soft shell crab
wind and waves and salty air
all in the taste
Presence
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Monday, April 13, 2026
HAPPY HOUR
Apples sauteed in butter with brown sugar and cinnamon. Sunday morning breakfast to be eaten on the deck. After a week of rain, followed by a five-day heat wave, a perfect Sunday arrives and shouts that something special is in order. Add orange juice, toast with strawberry jam and lots of hazelnut coffee
The sun’s rays are filtered through the Japanese maple. No need to open an umbrella. Birds in trees are vocal, but unseen. The stream, also unseen, gurgles softly. I leave my cell phone inside. Phone calls can wait. Emails and text messages can wait. This hour is mine.
so easy to ignore
the pleasures of each day
to push past small joys
I slow down my breathing
and open up to wonder
Drifting Sands, spring 2026
Saturday, April 4, 2026
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Tanka
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Tanka Prose
What Remains
We are newly married, live in an apartment, have no garden, but for entertainment we browse nurseries. On an impulse, we buy a small lemon tree to give to my parents for their back yard.
My father is not a gardener, and we have only a hope that the southern California sun and an occasional watering will be sufficient for the lemon tree’s survival. Dad, however, adopts that seedling, tending to its needs as a father to a child. Watering, fertilizing, pruning. It thrives, and through the years produces more than enough lemons for my parents and for us and neighbors. In his late years, living alone, Dad is neglectful of the house, but not the lemon tree. After he dies and the house sold, the new owners cut down the lemon tree to create an unencumbered back yard for their children’s play area.
lemon blossoms
swirling in the breeze—
a look back
to a memory sweetened
with the passing of time
Contemporary Haibun Online