Lifeless? No, leafless.
They hold their breath all winter,
exhale leaves in spring.
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Category: haiku
Persistent Purple
No longer pretty,
potted tulips catch my eye
until petals fall.
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Shockwaves?
Water in glassware
plays prism with morning light.
Serendipity.
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Internal Reflections
Sunlight on the pine
caroms off lens surfaces
and shines from within.
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Vocal Visitor
Caw from unseen bird.
Crows are louder and shriller.
Could be a raven.
Overlay © John Cobb | Unsplash
While my own sightings are few and long ago, I believe ravens still inhabit the region where I live and am confident that I can distinguish the croaking caw of a raven from the canonical caw of a crow. (Don’t hike much any more; still big on alliteration.) I also have some of indigenous folklore’s admiration of ravens, so I celebrated hearing one with a haiku. That posed a problem.
An ordinary image of a raven would not work for my haiku about an unseen bird thought to be a raven. I considered posting the haiku by itself, but I like images. Hmmm. I can photograph the nondescript view toward where the call seemed to originate. Can I then find and tweak an image of a raven to make a ghostly overlay that fits the mood of the haiku? Yes!
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Dusted for Fingerprints
Snow on lawn.
Tracks from last mowing,
seen again.
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Shadow Song
Gourds bask in sunlight;
shadows sing a silent song.
They both contribute.
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Last Few Nights of Old Year
Seen thru bare branches
that thrash in an angry wind,
Xmas lights shimmer.
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Lingering Leaves
Cherry hibernates,
safe under pine’s watchful eye.
A few leaves linger.
11-07 |
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11-24 |
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11-26 |
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The cherry had one last leaf on 11-26.
Did it sing Nunc dimittis before it fell on 11-30?
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Last Song of the Leaves
The sound of dry rain
fills the air above my yard.
“Keep the rake handy.”
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Glory in Gold and Silver
October
Bright sun and cool air;
azure skies and pumpkin pies.
Leaves fall in glory.
Silver Savior
The crowning glory
of our civilization
is, of course, duct tape.
Glory ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #334
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Turning Sequence
Still-green oak
will follow maple
in due time.
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Flaming Breath
Grumpy dragon
stays outside photo frame.
It’s a bad scales day.
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Cherry Meets Maple
Still green and growing,
cherry meets older maple
and finds a mentor.
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Waiting in Early Autumn
Some leaves change color.
I wait for a pot of gold
to end a rainbow.
Waiting ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #330
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Mortality and Defiance
~ Mortality #1 ~
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
~ Mortality #2 ~
I live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
I live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
Defiance ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #328
An earlier version of this post responded to a challenge inspired by Basho’s last haiku, written when he knew he was dying. Contributors were asked to imagine Basho writing a haiku for his closest followers from his deathbed. While I admired the resulting excellent sad poems, I defied the expectation of sadness and imagined Basho rallying briefly to encourage his companions with a pair of short haiku in 3-5-3.
My response to the previous challenge bungled the initial line of Mortality #2. My first thought was that Basho might tell his followers to
Live your lives / with defiant joy, / …
Telling people like me how to live is a reliable way to elicit angry defiance, so I rejected my first thought, neglected to defy my own fondness for alliteration, and settled on
Let’s live life / with defiant joy, / …
despite some misgivings. Hmmm. Wish I had used
I lived life / with defiant joy, / …
as what Basho might say on his deathbed. Hmmm. I can use it now in the present tense because I am still fairly healthy for my age, in defiance of the odds against those who bungle things more consequential than a line of poetry. So I use it in the revised Mortality #2 here, with defiant joy.
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Mellow Curmudgeon 