On a night of grief
light snow stings like glass: your eyes
search these fallen stars
for a stranger
3 Replies
Tag Archives: haiku
Outside In
Outside In
The garden is in the recluse, not the other way around.
You rivers and mountains pale against the heights and gorges
She must climb. I am the hand in her mind where thought gets tough.
I am the step suddenly appearing. In the calm harvest fields I know
I have often been missing, off on the mountain’s other side.
But in the slow running river my boat is not far away,
she’ll call a breeze to fetch me faster than words paddle. Here in her
garden, I’ll meet the better me, nodding as I pass on my way to her.
Diminishing Returns
Diminishing Returns
I crack the window, listen:
What message can this cold wind carry
but this breeze won’t tilt my room’s way and come in
I reach out it slips through my fingers
Unkind even to the moon it has taken a little off the top
Diminished month sent howling through the pines
Unauthored, not meant to be read –
or merely hurrying by, a forgotten promise?
Two short poems, considering Qianwan
Qianwan, or On Looking Up Several Times to the Horizon While Reading
There is no shape of the tree
though we identify the tree by its shape
what I see in trees and steel sky
is patience and distance
Qianwan, or Some Thoughts at Ground Level
If river ice or puddle ice breaks
under the weight of the waning moon
what we’ll find beneath is the waning moon
can I love you any more fully beneath this sheath of being?
Two Views from a Window, with Spiders
Afternoon view
Dimming roof. A scratch in the window
autumn’s spiders’ work can’t touch
catches January sun’s sleepy look back
Morning view
Way up a contrail drifts
over the roof like a lost spider’s thread
missing the tree by miles
Cold Night
Cold Night
the moon smiles thinly
brittle stars laugh — even I
can walk on water
Early Winter
Early Winter
on the mountain road
what looks like snow acts like rain
will I see you soon?
flowers for a garden on the other side of the world
flowers for a garden on the other side of the world
Sustained love is love’s
Only achievement: to stay
Beyond memory
*
start this year bare tree
grow quiet inside yourself
choose when to open
Two unrelated haiku
After snow
wise snow shovel waits:
sun slurs the mess awash down
hill: I sit, rest, read.
*
Sometimes
up with your child, night’s
anxious middle shows its calm
underside to you
Cyber Monday for Poetry? Uh, sure!
Hm, how does one do Cyber Monday if one is a poet with a website? How about we make it a Cyber Poet Week and offer…
Custom Haiku FREE with Purchase of Haiku Coaster Set
That’s right, literary holiday shopper! Buy a set of letterpress-printed haiku drink coasters and I will compose a haiku including any three words of your choice to pack along with your coasters. This is a neat and unique gift for anyone who loves poetry and coffee or tea or alcoholic beverages (errr, maybe even fine for someone who just plain likes alcoholic beverages, ya never know) and can make a great conversation piece at your next book club soiree!
The coaster set is beautifully designed and printed at St Brigid Press just on the other side of yonder Afton Mountain here in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. It consists of eight linked haiku entitled “Night Walk on Cape Cod.” You can see images of each coaster on the site. Look, here’s a sample right here:
To buy, just click the coaster picture in the top right corner of the front page, or go to the Books page.
To claim your custom haiku, send a copy of your receipt to me at jeffrey.schwaner@gmail.com along with the three words you want included in the poem, and I’ll get right to work on your haiku.
This is a limited edition set–I’ve only got about ten of these left, so think up your words and think them up quick, to misquote Dr. Seuss. And no matter what purchasing decisions you make this Cyber Monday and beyond, have a safe and joyous holiday!
Translations from the English 