Category: Issue 17.1

We begin our new issue 17.1 with a double dose of nature’s visual fireworks. First, there are the myriad of colorful fish darting around this lively coral reef

into the spring mist
the mallard pair
and the mallards to come

scent of cedar
a yellow-bellied slider
from sun to shade

spring like nobody’s watching

daffodils
running wild
among the stones
of an old homestead
               voices echo

the farmhouse
where he was born
ripening wheat

 

birthday card—
onion skins
skitter away

 

the slow time
between freeze and thaw
what am I waiting for?

 

returning geese…
do they, too, remember
a childhood home

 

first shoots
the rescue party
making it through

 

 

spring blossoms our newborn before language

 

Learning English

passing clouds
the changing colours
of bougainvillea

Opening grandmother’s handmade notebook at C, I find a carob pod and recall her story

beneath the waves
the pearled words
of oysters

 

unfolding a map
the ocean
between us

doomsday clock
the scent of rain
before the rain

 

everything
in its own time
starlight

 

thunderbolt
a glimpse of the puppeteer’s
fingertips

the world reveals
its tender heart
the singing wren

children’s voices –
the daisies in the vase
unwilt

 

ballet recital
the parents
tiptoe in

 

 

hum
in the honeysuckle
first day of school

first graders model
clay pinch pots
Earth Day

backlit by the morning star blackbird song

 

 

flute notes through the summer air sparrows

willow catkins
in the evening wind
notes of Chopin

 

 

 

(First appeared as an Honorable Mention in The 16th Mainichi Haiku Contest, 2013)

birdsong
a boy gently holds
a string of firecrackers

 

first light
a strand of her hair
between my lips

 

home alone
the teapot whistles
a single note

late again
a dozen roses
all alike

 

 

 

(Originally published in Modern Haiku, 40.3)

wildflowers
never make
promises

the setting sun
floods potato fields
with crimson
a migrant looks up
at geese flying south

 

unpacked box
on the kitchen table—
foreign headlines

 

 

   tears
   when
    we
   have
     to
   leave
   your
  height
  chart
    on
   the
  door
  jamb

 

waiting for a call
from the son who never calls —
Mother’s Day

The Look

 

Two or three times a year I make trips to Chennai to be with my parents for a few weeks. My mother is 85 years old. I notice every shade of emotion that runs

a good chance
she’ll change her mind —
sunshowers

 

the now she returns to dementia

steam rising
through a band of light
winter tea

breaking into
an abandoned house
January wind

in foreclosure
the dream house
we didn’t buy

business lunch
the dialogues
unspoken

 

after the protest
moonlight on empty
tear-gas canisters

 

sickle day moon
boys from the county lockup
cut highway grass

 

pit stop
we water the roadside
flowers

 

remembrance day
 the gate clangs
  against its lock

 

 

a broken tooth
yet he sees the young girl
naked before him
smiling a wide smile
as she was at twenty

 

 

 

(Included in A Gift of Tanka, AHA Books, 1990)

on the mend . . .
this long afternoon
stitched by swallows

 

traffic hum
honey bees nesting
in an old pine

Amidst Tricksters

 

On geyser time, we rise throughout the night with Old Faithful chilled to the marrow, despite layers and down bags and molten rock a mere three

checking email…
the hole in me where
the funnies used to be

 

rainy day
my loneliness
stays inside

Groundhog Day —
shaving the shadow
from my face

 

the felled oak
bending to fit
the earth

 

 

 

 

(Included in Tiger in a Teacup, AHA Books, 1998)

winter ridgeline
a long drawn-out conversation
with wind

filaments of snow

           drifting sideways

                     on the wind--

                             old pines

                                     shed their ghosts

snow on snow
all the things
we keep hidden

 

 

a horse gallops
in flickering firelight
Lascaux cave

migrating geese
a girl in a sandbox
plays with trucks

crowded trolley
the conductor composes
himself

green fields flooded the train passing a station without stopping

 

strumming the ukulele always summer

 

wedding dance
a bachelor moves in on
the gin

end of yoga
one of the corpses
lightly snoring

 

 

 

(Previously appeared in Yoga-ku, Ed. Terri French, 2014)

 

on the wrong side of history graveyard tulips

 

deep fern-gully
the magpie’s warble curls
through mist

 

gray morning
the sound of
a red canoe

 

kingfisher
splitting
the river

 

border attack . . .
lupine seed heads
pop in the heat

home from errands —
a hero’s welcome
from the dog

 

 

 

 

(Originally appeared in Modern Haiku 44:1, Winter/Spring 2013)

sheltering
against the dawn . . .
thistledown

 

inch by inch
the inchworm goes
by the book

charity dinner
selfies
first

 

lightning
the vibration
of katydids

frantic ants
still building
the unlit fire

 

 

poems
without verbs
the heat

 

 

 

 

(Originally appeared in Modern Haiku 46.2)

late-summer quiet
cattails
starting to shred

last one in
a moth enters through
the closing door