Category: Issue 20.1

spring’s return
a tossed coin
tumbling in air

April Fool’s Day
the cuckoo
switches eggs

tulip magnolia–
the full-throated song
of a meadowlark

varied thrush
between notes
the unwavering light

almost spring
swinging my cane
to a new beat

eight minutes from the sun unfurling ferns

expanding universe
I teach my uncle
how to read

creases in a map
an old man at the trailhead
squints back sunlight

the one who went first
waiting for me
labyrinth’s center

without a way to find you mourning dove

mesa clouds
we mind each step
among the pottery shards

the longest
I’ve ever lived in one place…
lichen on maples

spring migration
the return of
vinyl records

every plastic ever made in existence

downstream slightly faster than the debris

earth day
leaving the river alone
with its thoughts

climate strike
making her own sign
like a kid again

breaching the levee
river town
flooded with moonlight

where willows weave shadows the receding river

climate change
the slippery slope
of a glacier

steel band
the oil drums
that drive us

city park
the accordionist pleats
the breeze

Manhattan evening
three fingers
of sunset

spring gusts …
a swirl of dead leaves
in the dugout

express take-out
all the way home
nothing but red lights

small-town diner
she tells us we can take
any seat we like

milk moon
she tells more
than he wants to know

her bony back
against my palm —
Mother’s Day

(First published in evolution, the Red Moon anthology, 2010)

waning moon
arranging flowers
in her mother’s hands

my daughter
can’t read cursive
imagine my sorrow
my notes in her baby book
are gibberish to her

(From A Thousand Voices, Tanka Society

what we take
and what we leave behind
honey harvest

The Path

Walking through the birch trees we talk of our children and our work. Which for me is one and the same. We talk of haiku, of Shakespeare, of religion. And I wonder

fairy lights
on a sapling…
her prom dress

struggling
with the new curriculum
weekly shooter drill

short day
this cold shell
of a bullet

spring vineyard
stone farmhouse pockmarked
with mortar shells

returning
to the vanishing point
in the blue hour
five lonely notes
of a mourning dove

lilacs
filling the house
with memories

mayfly
the eulogy writes
itself

day moon
bees orbit
the buttonbush

first sprouts
a crow cleans its feathers
on the scarecrow’s shoulder

spring planting–
a runner of ivy
in the dog’s teeth

cluster
of barrel cactus
morning glow

cloud cover . . .
plum blossoms reach out
to the sky

blossom rain . . .
a toadstool turns
inside out

noon sunlight
in the shower’s rhythm
white chrysanthemum

(Originally published in The Mainichi Haiku in English
November 4, 2014)

Irises

ladies gathered for
a garden tea and gossip
irises in bloom

And in the summer breeze these now beige irises seem to nod and whisper, and if you listen

cooling tea
 all I believed
  I'd do today

sunrise
waiting for a cormorant
to surface

break in the rain
a flock of lorikeets loud
in the blossoming plum

muting
the commercial
mourning dove

friday night
no one calls
but the geese

old letters in a shoebox
winter sunlight
hanging on

winter sun . . .
the wren’s
vocal warm-up

millions of songs
I will never hear
first snow fall

path of nettles
the sting from
an old memory

first date sushi
the artfully balanced slices
of our narratives

the longest night
feeling nostalgic
for radio static

winter rain
watering the flowers
on her umbrella

tall bamboo
bows to the pruners
late snow

hard times
the bird bath freezes over
before sundown

3am Tao
I try to sleep
without trying

light studded hillside
the miles of night
till the next town

mountain hollow
a sway in the back
of the old draft horse

Amish country
the precision
of a cracked whip

lopsided moon
I consider both sides
of the argument

baseball game
for three hours we all belong
to the same party

a crack
in the concrete box
prisoner’s sky

thunderclap —
the darkening sky splits
into liquid night

(Originally published in beyond the horizon beyond)

more than enough
to fill an afternoon
summer cumulus

the cornfield
closes behind us
summer dusk

X marks the crosshairs radiotherapy

last of autumn
a prescription bottle
filled with sepia

he tells me
he’s forced to retire
falling-leaf moon

retirement benefits
I pick up
sand dollars

seafront clairvoyant
her cypress leaf charm
brushes my palm

(Originally appeared in Presence 58, 2017)

the moon’s pull
shaping the curve
inside the wave

telling me over and over the undertow

afterglow…
the tingle
of sunburn

that look
in our eyes . . .
candle moths

honey-cool melon tasting of a hundred hives

dining
on the lake
water striders

Indian summer
corn-on-the-cob-shaped
corn-on-the-cob holders

summer eve
stuck in my teeth
a wild blackberry seed

keeping their secret
bitterns become
reeds

deep summer moon
so smooth
this skipping stone

controlled burns
in the pine forest
the fine line
between pique
and fury

old growth forest the feeling of being watched

a tree tagged
for clearing
summer’s end

my jar
of old keys
forgotten passwords

art class notes
 the margin doodles
  improve by the week

someone’s name in chalk at the end of summer

in the space
left by twilight
crickets