Tag Archives: haiku

Lotus Compass Points

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Lotus Compass Points

 

Some times you have to go
deep enough in so
there’s no way
out
before a sense
of real direction
develops

*

Orange sun sets through gap in clouds
in the midst of a spring snow flurry

does nothing know its place?
or I have forgotten nothing

has its place here

*

Mist rises from trees
ghosts of foliage
longing for last summer
Sometimes I feel a ghost

in myself a burning off
that I mistake for rising
It clouds the moon
between us

*

Navigating mountain fog road
I slow to the speed of the visible

The sun only a white rumor
all wild empty air just out of reach

Descent brings clarity
a painted line, the next curve ahead

truths higher than any
enveloped peak

After a Mid-March Snowstorm

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midmarch1

After a Mid-March Snowstorm

 

Winter’s last silent sigh
is borne quietly by mountain pines

Clouds drift like tumblers until
they unlock the day’s first color

End of the Day

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End of the Day

 

By the end of every day I want to leave nothing unsaid
who knows when the next time to say it will be?

If it is tomorrow so much the better
I want to kiss my son’s head carry my daughters

as they sleep from our bed to theirs
though it is not as easy as it was a few years ago

and touch foreheads with each dawn
before light burns our silent words away

*

Hollow-boned bird on the twig of this moment
knowing that twig is not home but all there is

to perch on I want to catch up with my own
lightness full of all that wings will cover

or carry with a piece of the end of the day
to add to the nest which will be good enough

when I alight at dawn and for the dusk
I will one day wordlessly drift down to

To An Old Tune

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To An Old Tune

 

Always a surprise to hear your voice
and realize you are still with me

I must persist in you and grow less quiet
now and then like a song that comes to mind

or maybe like the years hum a little louder
without recognition above the level of crickets

distant trains garbage trucks or maybe you have
loved me this long and I’m still surprised by that

Early March, Above Freezing, Light Snow

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Early March, Above Freezing, Light Snow

 

Five mourning doves gather on close branches.
But the sky in the trees is too miserable for mourning.

Even the earth will not accept the night’s snow
which sits in clumps on the ground like oil on water.

It highlights fallen trees on the mountain slope
showing all the directions down can take you.

Between the shed and a crack in the clouds
two bluejays mate in a flurry on a fallen ladder.

Weakness

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Weakness

 

At night when my heart sets out to find you
my weakness follows clumsily waving a lamp
behind me casting shadows making still things
seem to move and moving things
impossible to identify: I don’t spend much time
with my weakness but it finds me easily enough
I don’t talk much about it or even look at it
straight on though when it speaks its volumes
increase when it is seen it is familiar
I know I cannot shake this thing which is not a thing
but like the part of our bodies we cannot see
When I see that part through others it wears my face

Early Signs

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Early Signs

 

All at once dogs and children roam in friendly agitation
where yesterday they stuck to the plowed paths

They climb the mountain of last week’s snow pushed to the roadside
Its ten thousand questions answered

by the lengthening silence of the afternoon
I feel like calling you every hour just to say nothing special

With thunder and warm wind spring starts to shoulder winter aside
Under sky’s sharp azure stone a jeweled cloud leapfrogs mountain

Sending Snow to My Friend L in Turkey Before Rain Washes It Away Or It Melts in Delivery

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Sending Snow to My Friend L in Turkey Before Rain Washes It Away Or It Melts in Delivery

 

There is the right way
[insert memory here, L]:
(there is this way, too)

Western Haiku Instruction Manual, two lines of which are cribbed from Google Translate’s English version of Indigenous Metropolitan’s Post “Social Studies (Unpretentious) To Write A Haiku” Originally in Italian [haiku]

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Western Haiku Instruction Manual, two lines of which are cribbed from Google Translate’s English version of Indigenous Metropolitan’s Post “Social Studies (Unpretentious) To Write A Haiku” Originally in Italian

 

A fair game of balance:
(do not respect the syllables)
a life is in your hands

 

See Indigenous Metropolitan’s original post here.