losing its name
a river
enters the sea
– John Sandbach
*
children squealing
slowly the oldest gorilla
focuses elsewhere
– Ruth Yarrow
*
The thief left it behind,
the moon
at the window
– Ryokan
What is really ours? In the sense of this haiku ( my personal favorite) what we “own” or possess may be very little… perhaps our memories of who we once were or what we once had… perhaps some understanding and then…
*
The moon
broken again and again on the sea
so easily mends
– Choshu
*
aware
of the heart:
handling glassware
– Raymond Roseliep
*
A firefly flitted by:
“Look”! I almost said
but I was alone
– Taigi
*
Simply trust:
do not the petals flutter down,
just like that
– Issa
*
poppy-
both of us
simply alive
-Issa
*
The next morning
rereading the last page
of the happy ending
– Tom Tico
*
free at last, the fly
flew out the window-and then
right back in again
– James Hackett
*
monastery bell
the curled cat opens its eyes
closes them again
– Jerry Kilbride
*
Today it struck me-
the thought of red suns setting
after I’m gone
– Gunther Klinge
*
vacation over–
hearing the sea
in the traffic’s roar
-Pamela Miller Ness
*
the old cat carries off
a little sunshine
on his back
– Anita Virgil
*
Everyone is asleep
there is nothing to come between
the moon and me
– Enomoto Siefu-Jo
–
–
warm evening
an open door
to someone’s living room
– John Stevenson
*
This huge ocean-
I could stand here forever
it would still come to me
– Proxade Davis
*
when I have sat long enough
the red dragonfly
comes to the wheatgrass
– Laurie Stoelting
*
Resting…
the sagging fence
goes on up the hill
– Foster Jewell
*
coming home
flower
by
flower
– Jane Reichhold
*
fence fallen away
I close the rusted gate
behind me
– Yvonne Hardenbrook
*
in the pollen
on my car
her signature
– John Stevenson
*
old passport
the tug
of my father’s smile
– Yu Chang
*
cabin steps
fresh birch seeds
since morning
– Hilary Tann
*
as the light fails,
still hammering
from the treehouse
– Lee Gurga
*
noh play-
watching the throat
behind the mask
– Hilary Tann
*
waiting for you
another pair of headlights
through the fog
– Yu Chang
*
amber light…
creased in the roadmap
a place we’ve been
– Peggy Willis Lyles
*
Across the fields
a swallow carrying one hair
from the plow horse
– vincent tripi
*
migrating geese-
once there was so much
to say
– Adele Kenny
*
lone red-winged blackbird
riding a reed in high-tide-
billowing clouds
– Nick Vigilio
*
in autumn rain
looking back at the smoke
from my chimney
– Anita Virgil
*
in the mountains
a roadhouse sign goes out
clouds blow off the stars
– Cor van den Heuvel
*
The little breeze
that touched my face
returns
– Alexis Rotella
*
a deep bruise
I don’t remember getting
autumn evening
-John Stevenson
*
crowded bus through fog
someone singing
in another language
– Ruth Yarrow
*
In this empty web,
left by a will to be free
a pair of small wings
– James Hackett
*
Just leaves
where the carnival
was
– Alexis Rotella
*
winter evening
leaving father’s footprints
I sink into deep snow
– Nick Virgilio
*
stalled car
foot tracks being filled
with snow
– Gary Hotham
*
the river-
coming to it with nothing
in my hands
– Leatrice Lifshitz
*
how silently
the wave-tossed log is beached
and snow-flaked
– Geraldine C. Little
*
At the summit tree,
my exhausted dog lifts his leg
a dry formality
– James Hackett
*
the old man
blows his nose then smells
the daisy
– John Wills
*
Moving with
the clock tower’s shadow
the flower lady
– Alexis Rotella
*
as the sun comes out
a sail appears from behind
the island
– Cor van den Heuvel
*
summer night
the tide flows
from the estuary
– John Stevenson
*
On the rabbit’s fur
just enough snow
to be snow
– vincent tripi
*
at the corner
she finds a wind to spin
the pinwheel faster
-Gary Hotham
*
old slippers
the comfort
coming apart
– John Stevenson
*
night of the blizzard:
my snow angel glowing
under a street lamp
– Adele Kenny
*
a crow in the snowy pine
inching up a branch,
letting the evening sun through
letting the evening sun through
– Nick Virgilio
*
no sound to this
spring rain-
but the rocks darken
– Anita Virgil
*
dark road
sparks from a cigarette
bounce behind a car
– Cor van den Heuvel
*
Old Lincoln-
a deeper lavender
where the wrench lay
– Alexis Rotella
*
another bend
now at last the moon
and all the stars
– John Wills
*
pueblo roof edge
Hopi mother pats the dance
into her baby’s back
– Ruth Yarrow
An old spider web
low above the forest floor,
sagging full of seeds
– James Hackett
The day i find,
the day it finds,
firefly
– vincent tripi
Indian summer-
we ride around town
just to be riding
– Lenard D. Moore
Saturday downpour-
swiveling the stool
at the soda counter
– H.F. Noyes
A wisp of spring cloud
drifting apart from the rest
slowly evaporates
– Tom Tico
Old pond:
frog jump in
water sound
– Basho
oppossum bones
wedged in an upper fork-
budding leaves
– Lee Gurga
A Halloween mask
floating face up in a ditch
slowly shakes its head
– Clement Hoyt
Lean-to of tin;
a pintail on the river
in the pelting rain
– Robert Spiess
In a tight skirt
a woman sweeping leaves
into the wind
– Virginia Brady Young
a poppy…
a field of poppies!
the hills blowing with poppies
– Michael McClintock
the flick of high beams-
out of the dark roadside ditch
leaps a tall grass clump
– Paul O. Williams
fog moves through
the burned out house:
gently
– Jack Cain
Since settling to earth
the high spirit of that kite
has gone completely
– Kubouta
quietly
we become
audience
– Hilary Tann
a bit of birdsong
before we start
our engines
– John Stevenson
yesterday’s paper
in the next seat-
the train picks up speed
– Gary Hotham
The feeling and sense of this wonderful haiku have stuck with me for years. Being in this moment is to be touched by all that is constantly left behind. The newspaper is a token of what was, not what is, and as such presents a potent reminder in concert with the train’s picking up speed that the moment is fleeting and quickly lost. You have a sense of being alone and looking to the empty next seat and there’s a random wonder about whether yesterday’s news is worthy of retrieving. The paper and the train’s motion together fill you with a depth of recognition that captures perfectly the heart of loneliness, of leaving and of transience, creating at once the poignancy of an instant.
From As Far as the Light Goes, LaCrosse, Wisconsin: Juniper Press, 1990
commentary published in Woodnotes #25 Summer 1995
after the garden party the garden
– Ruth Yarrow ( Wind Chimes #7, Winter 1983)
Among many haiku I read early on that awakened my interest and inspired my sense of just what a haiku is, I still rank this spare poem by Ruth Yarrow as very influential. The contrast of the garden filled with people and emptied out is at once familiar, vivid and crystal clear. To attend an event with many people and share comraderie, place, and a common memory creates a multilayered response to suddenly be in this same place later, alone. Indelibly the garden is revealed in itself without everyone else there.
We are left to determine how this now empty garden makes us feel. Are we sad the party is over? Are we glad to be free of the social obligations and noisy commotion? This freedom of determination and variety of readings helped me begin to identify critical qualities of a successful haiku. The magic and charm of this garden after its garden party is found in savoring the beauty and intricacy of each and every thing there that we are open to once the party is over. Without the distraction of others or the self performing itself we come closer to a genuine communion with the gardens of our lives.
( commentary published in Woodnotes #30 Autumn 1996)
Late autumn-
a single chair waiting
for someone yet to come
– Arima Akito
sand storm
the scorpion’s stinger
aiming at the wind
– William Cullen Jr.
so many boulders
in the stream all of the water
finding its way
– David Elliot
We are made up of mostly water and constantly it is finding its way through our life. To imagine how much water passes through us in a lifetime is to recognize how truly we are each a fleshy filter experiencing the very river of our existence.
All the water finding its way through so many boulders is a beautiful and reassuring statement about each of us finding our way through the myriad trials and tribulations of life. Each season of our lives is rife with “boulders.” At times we are frustrated, if not terrified or exhausted, by these barricades and the process of negotiating passage past them. The wisdom of time equalling change and the zen of now expresses exactly the deliverance that exists in moving…toward destiny… the way. Destiny is movement, and even when we are seemingly still in ourselves the planet continues to plow space, circling its way through the dark-light spin. People gather and empty out of a space… rooms fill with glee and then silence and wind blows on the peak top.
We are always in motion, as is the essential nature of water. Our form is perpetually the miracle dance that is emptiness defining itself. This simple, brilliant haiku says it all so well… and on the way too.
( published in Brussels Sprout, vol. X:2, 1993 )
low over the railroad
wild geese flying-
a moonlit night
– Shiki
in the shadow of the cherry blossom
complete strangers
there are none…
– Issa
the first dream of the year-
I kept it a secret
and smiled to myself
– Sho-u
father and son
hunching along together-
the snow banked road
H.F. Noyes
snowy night
sometimes you can’t be
quiet enough
– John Stevenson
Drifting round a bend
– the sliding turtles plash
tells a downstream deer
– Robert Spiess
This haiku by Robert Spiess irresistably draws us into the concentric connections that make the haiku way the perfection that is nature. The motion of the canoe ( or water) drifting is like each of us rounding each moment in our lives. Daily by chance or design we encounter myriad meanings in our experiences. Our momentum forward is inextricably linked to everything we come in contact with. We effect and we are affected. This is the setting up a chain of gently reacting images. We, the canoe, cause a turtle to slide, whose sound, so subtle is the reduced plash, in turn causes a deer to perk its ear, which in turn comes back to us as the images expand and complete a circuit at once. The resonance operates simply yet profoundly in infinite fashion throughout our lives. Our part in the cycle of sense awareness from surface to depth and back again seems to be at the core of haiku fascination. The way in which one entity touches another, then another, reverberating in each the other is the precious faith and brilliance of haiku.
( published in Brussels Sprout v. VI, Issue 3, 1989 )
car piled with luggage
straying into the funeral
procession
– Yvonne Hardenbrook
One of the tests of a poem’s strength is how well it holds up over repeated readings. A favorite of mine that continues to intrigue me is this odd and humoristic image that Yvonne captures so aptly. A car loaded down with one’s worldly belongings is an obvious sight. The person/ people moving are in contradictory states of being. Burdened by belongings can create a vulnerable awkwardness that in part is offset by some comfort that comes from having so much of one’s life close at hand.
That this potent load is juxtaposed with a funeral is a priceless peek at mystery itself. A funeral procession often creates a striking image that amidst regular life seems out of place and deserving of notice. To combine someone moving with this procession is to suggest that in death we make our biggest move. The only possession we take along is the procession of family and friends as they make their way to pay respects.
This poem elicits a constant tip of the hat to what’s mysterious in life moving with death. It also alludes to the universal truth that our last move, in death, is always without any luggage.
( published in Brussels Sprout, v. XI: 1, 1994 )
empty tracks
a stranger and I
looking in the same direction
– Yu Chang
music two centuries old-
the color flows
out of the teabag
– Gary Hotham
This beautiful haiku brings out asubliminal sense of interpenetration where things are most realized when they are in concert with a medium. Music exists in many forms yet is most vital when performed, played and appreciated by listeners. The musical notes on a page are truly music only when combined with each other and the synthesis of instruments, practice, direction, technology and an audience. Similarly tea in a teabag becomes tea ultimately only when it enters the water in a teacup. The magic of this poem is this correspondance, where two disparate events are shown to share an essence of the same fundamental truth. This underlying truth suggests that everything depends upon and is in relation to other things. This association and awareness is where reading and writing haiku begins.
( published in Brussels Sprout, v.XII: 2 , 1995 )
far at sea
a tiny bird
rests on flotsam
– Margaret Molarsky
open to the sky
the upper window
of the abandoned barn
– Bruce Ross
End of autumn-
I leave the gate to the garden
ajar
-Alexis Rotella
To hear it,
not to hear myself
waterfall
– vincent tripi
up late-
the furnace comes on
by itself
– Gary Hotham
he removes his glove
to point out
Orion
– Raymond Roseliep
Sunflower
its head now too heavy
to meet the sun
-Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
watching the sun disappear
then standing, to watch it
disappear again
– Hilary Tann
autumn twilight:
the wreath on the door
lifts in the wind
-Nick Virgilio
in the bucket
bait fish
schooling
– Lea Lifshitz
rolling a cigarette
the canoe drifts
just where I want to go
– Michael Ketchek
my hand moves out
touches the sun
on a log
– John Wills
After I step
through the moonbeam-
I do it again
– George Swede
up from the sea wall
a plume of spray
filled with dusk light
-Geraldine C. Little
warm rain before dawn:
my milk flows into her
unseen
– Ruth Yarrow
leaving us
to find our own light
last of the sun
– Marian Olson
on a mountain trail
alone-
but never alone
– Margaret Molarsky
alone…
a downdraft
stirs the ashes
– R.A. Stefanac
lonely night
the faces painted on the windows
of a toy bus
– Cor van den Heuvel
Summer night:
we turn out all the lights
to hear the rain
-Peggy Willis Lyles
phone call
from a faraway friend
the cat starts purring
– Penny Harter
warm kitchen
the rise and fall
of friend’s laughter
– Barry George
beneath the stars
hand in hand
with my son
– Michael Ketchek
an ocean away-
I try to draw her closer
with pad and pencil
– Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Nightfall-
the rose lets go
its red
– Alexis Rotella
hand to hand-
the unframed photos
of her life
– Gary Hotham
beach walk
the stick I tossed
yesterday
– Tom Painting
freight train
moving all
the caterpillar’s hair
– vincent tripi
station by moonlight-
one traveler gets out
and one gets on
– Cor Langedij
May morning
the door opens
before I knock
– John Stevenson
the geese have gone-
in the chilly twilight
empty milkweed pods
– Cor van den Heuvel
Now and again
a birdsong gives rest
to the monk’s silence
– vincent tripi
Not a ginkgo on the block
yet this leaf
on my front step
– Alexis Rotella
falling on a face
in the small seaport window-
evening sunlight
– Gunther Klinge
The resthome van–
toothless old faces smile
as a firetruck races past
– David LeCount
waves crash
against the pier – the bottle
slips from my hand
– Michael Ketchek
hot night
turning the pillow
to the cool side
– Cor van den Heuvel
The waves now fall short
of the stranded jelly fish…
In it shines the sky
– O. Mabson Southard
snow patches
thicket along the stream
snags the fog
– Ruth Yarrow
fountain spray
and the blindman’s upturned face
finding each other
H.F. Noyes
no longer dripping
the icicle holds
the sunset
– Ruth Yarrow
freshly fallen snow-
opening a new package
of typing paper
– Nick Avis
lulling me to sleep
the rain
then waking me
– Michael Dudley
the frustrated fly
drops to the window sill
and throws a buzzing fit
– James Hackett
If I go alone,
I’ll lie in the wildflowers
and dream of you
– Rod Willmot
Summer night:
in my eyes starlight
hundreds of years old
– George Swede
That breeze brought it-
a moment of moonlight
to the hidden fern.
– Foster Jewell
fireworks
I close my eyes
for a second look
– John Stevenson
birdsong
through open windows
he lifts the veil
– Peggy W. Lyles
distant glimmer
of a beach fire-
autumn moonrise
– Marje Dyck
two crabs
grappling with locked claws
taken by a wave
– Robert Zukowski
long sermon-
in the roof beams
cobwebs flutter
– Dean Summers
leaves budding
a little girl
spinning in her dress
-John Stevenson
Dusk over the lake
a turtle’s head emerges
then silently sinks
– Virgil Hutton
lily:
out of the water…
out of itself
– Nick Virgilio
in this warm spring rain
tiny leaves are sprouting
from the eggplant seed
– Basho
west- bound train
the winter sunset
lasts awhile
– Donna Claire Gallagher
November evening-
the wind from a passing truck
ripples a roadside puddle
– Cor van den Heuvel
geese overhead
the dog stops licking
to listen
– Joann Klontz
The hills
release the summer clouds
one…by one…by one
– John Wills
birthcry!
the stars
are all in place
– Raymond Roseliep
Shooting the rapids!
– a glimpse of a meadow
gold with buttercups
– Robert Spiess
shooting the rapids-
even the back of his head
looks surprised
H.F. Noyes
low tide-
stones that have dried
among those that haven’t
– John Stevenson
sitting
where I sat as a child
I wait out the storm
– Hilary Tann
not seeing
the room is white
until that red apple
– Anita Virgil
I am one
who eats his breakfast
gazing at the morning glories
– Basho
breakfasting
with the morning glories-
painted on my cup
– H.F. Noyes
On the gray church wall,
the shadow of a candle
… shadow of its smoke
– L.A. Davidson
Morning:
catching that tail-end
of a dream
– Michael McClintock
late afternoon:
cattle lie
in the billboard shade
– Randy Brooks
The fog has settled
around us. A faint redness
where the maple was.
– Claire Pratt
twisting inland,
the sea fog takes awhile
in the apple trees
– Michael McClintock
I look up
from writing
to daylight.
– William Higginson
evening star
almost within
the moon’s half-curve
– William Higginson
the evening star
just above the snow the tip
of an alder bush
– Nick Avis
Winter moon;
a beaver lodge in the marsh,
mounded with snow
– Robert Spiess
i catch
the maple leaf then let
it go
– John Wills
after Beethoven
he gets the furnace
roaring
– Raymond Roseliep
feeling foolish love
for the water in the stream
just passing by
– H.F. Noyes
overtaken
by a single cloud,
and letting it pass
– Michael McClintock
summer sunrise
a man on a ladder
changing the price of gas
– John Stevenson
the hidden path
through the woods
plain with snow
– Jim Kacian
I read
she reads
winter evening
– Lee Gurga
I sink a little bridge
to the aquarium floor-
first day of summer
– Emiko Miyashita
Winter morning-
the sound of a board
hitting the pile
– Barry George
old garden shed
the insecticide can
full of spiders
– Ernest Berry
still ahead of us
the storm
we’ve been driving toward
– John Stevenson
legs pawing
the summer wind-monarch
in the wiper blade
– Lee Gurga
Hiking by full moon-
the rockslide a spill of light
down the mountain
– David Elliott
The fire-fly
gives light
to its pursuer
– Oemaru
quietly
the fireworks
far away
– Gary Hotham
After gazing at stars…
now, I adjust to the rocks
under my sleeping bag
– Tom Tico
The distant mountains
are reflected in the eye
of the dragonfly
– Issa
hiking
into the clouds
the view within
– Garry Gay
migrating birds-
the weight
of my first voters’ guide
– Fay Aoyagi
crab
washed ashore
each feeler intact
– Francine Porad
First Christmas-
my daughter plays
with a cardboard box
– Kathy Cobb
lighting the woodstove
he kneels absorbed
in last year’s newspaper
– Dee Evetts
snow now rain
your picture
by mine
– Gary Hotham
picking the last pears
yellow windows hang
in the dusk
– Ruth Yarrow
old Indian trail
we too,
pause for the view
– Margaret Molarsky
rainswept parking lot
headlights of a locked car
grow dim
– Charles Dickson
everytime
the bushes dip the bees
change places
– John Wills
family album-
the black and white
of my youth
– Jim Kacian
morning twilight…
horse asleep in the pasture
covered with frost
– Lee Gurga
november evening
the faintest tick of snow
upon the cornstalks
– John Wills
change of kimono:
showing only her back
to the blossom’s fragrance
– Chiyo-ni
glancing back
the woman I passed
grows lovelier
– Jeffrey Winke
spring twilight…
the hanging fern
turns
– Anita Virgil
over and over
on the railway embankment
the same scrawny tree
– Doris Heitmeyer
end of the line
the conductor starts turning
the seats around
– Cor van den Heuvel
in one room
everything she has
and a window
– Lea Lifshitz
rainstorm on the pond;
beaver pushing a poplar limb
to plug the dam
– Charles Dickson
the swan’s head
turns away from sunset
to his dark side
– Anita Virgil
The Beloved-
how simple
the bear sniffs the air
-vincent tripi
A cloud of bugs
busy going nowhere
in a ray of sun
– James Hackett
casting stones
in a quiet pool
for company
– Jim Normington
deepening autumn-
soundless drift of leaves
against the boathouse
– H.F. Noyes
sixteenth autumn since
barely visible grease marks
where he parked his car
– Nick Virgilio
the evening paper
on the darkening lawn
first star
– Cor van den Heuvel
figure drawing class-
in the models deepest shadows
a stark white string
– Lee Gurga
A long wedge of geese
straw gold needles of the larch
on the flowing stream
– Robert Spiess
slowly too
grass where we loved
realigning
– vincent tripi
Slow mountain descent
the turbulent river gentles
into a lake
– Jean Jorgensen
the geese fly off…
and it comes to me
that I am still here
– H.F. Noyes
walking the snow-crust
not sinking
sinking
– Anita Virgil
Two flies, so small
it’s a wonder they ever met,
are mating on this rose
– James Hackett
calm evening
alone on the porch I rouse
the windchimes
– Yvonne Hardenbrook
bursting free
from a box-shaped pruning
forsythia branches
– Francine Porad
up late with old friends…
my daughter and her blankie
out of the dark
– Randy Brooks
reading a mystery
a cool breeze comes through
the beach roses
– Cor van den Heuvel
Compassion-
the taste of the pear
bruised by other pears
– vincent tripi
dispute at second base
the catcher lets some dirt
run through his fingers
– Cor van den Heuvel
field of wild iris-
the pinto pony
kicks up his heels
– Elizabeth Searle Lamb
schools out-
a boy follows his dog
into the woods
– Randy Brooks
a dusting of snow
tire tracks grow visible
in the road’s soft edge
– Dee Evetts
in the pack rat’s nest
bits of an old calendar,
a tarnished spoon
– Elizabeth S. Lamb
autumn twilight-
in the closed barbershop
the mirrors darken
– Cor van den Heuvel
a deep gorge…
some of the silence
is me
– John Stevenson
long meeting
I study the pattern
embossed on the napkin
– Miriam Borne
why does the mandarin duck
float alone-
first winter rain
– Chiyo-ni
a warm gust…
back through the gate it comes
the whole pile of leaves
– Christopher Herold
all those haiku
about the moon in the trees
the moon in the trees
– John Stevenson
my high wire act
for you
and this moon
– Fay Aoyagi
fog…
just the tree and I
at the bus stop
– Jerry Kilbride
winter beach
a piece of driftwood
charred at one end
– John Stevenson
nudged by her boot tip
to the sidewalk’s edge
a dead sparrow
– Pamela Miller Ness
between cities
on the interstate
so many stars
– Karen Sohne
darkening road
wind parts the fur
of the dead cat
– Dee Evetts
two lines in the water…
not a word between
father and son
– Randy Brooks
heat lightning
the cow’s udder
shivers
– John Stevenson
cloud shadow
long enough to close
the poppies
– Christopher Herold
monastery cell-
a blue window opens
to sea and sky
– Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
Aging willow leafs out
its image unsteady
in the flowing stream
– Robert Spiess
fluttering madly-
butterfly in the slipstream
of a passing freight
– Lee Gurga
Takeoff:
in the runway crack
a single weed
– Ross Kremer
letting go
leaves pass leaves
holding on
– Robert Henry Poulin
a bike in the grass
one wheel slowly turning-
summer afternoon
– Lee Gurga
after all these years
ankle deep
in the other ocean
– Pamela Miller Ness
wind in the pampas grass
the rowboat strains
against its mooring
– Ce Rosenow
dragonflies mating-
the outboard motor
coughs into life
– Charlie Trumbull
the farther into it,
the farther it moves away-
spring mist
– Wally Swist
rows of corn
stretch to the horizon-
sun on the thunderhead
– Lee Gurga
night journey-
entering town
I lose the stars
-Hilary Tann
Milky Way-
carefully she spreads
the quilt
– Yu Chang
new snow
the arc
the door makes
– John Stevenson
candlelight dinner-
his finger slowly circles
the rim of his glass
– Lee Gurga
one broken pane
remaining in the shed
full moon
– Wally Swist
at rest
on the hospice wall
a mayfly
– Charlie Trumbull
beads of water
on the manzanita leaf
none touch
– Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
winter sun
a stranger makes room
without looking
– John Stevenson
blinding snow
there is no need
to understand everything
– Yu Chang
January thaw
easing the log
into the current
– Hilary Tann
for my birthday
another trip
around the sun
– Jim Kacian
each hole in turn…
a wasp checks out
where the bolts pulled loose
– Charlie Trumbull
exploring the cave…
my son’s flashlight beam
disappears ahead
– Lee Gurga
in the dark she whispers to me
“the deer have eaten
my tulips”
– Ronald Baatz
steady summer rain…
an old swayback farmhouse
by the road
– Bruce Ross
missing you-
windows rattle
with the wind
– Ce Rosenow
deep twilight-
the abandoned horse pasture
thick with buttercups
– Wally Swist
a squirrel leaping
from a tree in the rain
loves the soft earth of april
– Ronald Baatz
last bale of hay-
we sit down on it
and watch the moon
– Lee Gurga
curling tighter
a leaf
ctaches fire
– John Stevenson
a stone
i saved
casting stones
– Stanford M. Forrester
autumn morning-
repainting our bedroom
the color it was
– Mike Spikes
hot afternoon
the squeak of my hands
on my daughter’s coffin
– Leonard Moore
River stones
worn smooth
I have no regrets
– Garry Gay
autumn wind
the leaves are going
where I’m going
– John Stevenson
going out the door
i pass a grape that had
rolled away from breakfast
– Ronald Baatz
dawn mists rise…
the river bottom covered
with mud-ckaed stones
– Wally Swist
from one end
of the plane to the other
winter fly
– Charlie Trumbull
I finish my tea
the cup still full
of warmth
– Philomene Kocher
starry night-
biting into a melon
full of seeds
– Yu Chang
as if
it had split the boulder
pine seedling
– paul m.
Cabin fever-
spinning the child’s globe
until it blurs blue
– Carol Purington
first frost
a homeless man appears
in the new development
– Yu Chang
old railway bed
the ties
remain
– Hilary Tann
mountain moonrise
the sound I didn’t know
I had in me
– Peter Yovu
cycling with my son-
this is the autumn
I fall behind
Curtis Dunlap
longing for something-
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
– Ce Rosenow
milky way-
even the know-it-all
speechless
– Hank Dunlap
autumn downpour
a tow truck pulling
another
Carlos Colon
pull of the moon
I am not myself
tonight
– Yu Chang
the broken harp string
curving
into sunlight
-Elizabeth Searle Lamb
tom clausen 
Hello terrific website! Does running a blog like this take a large amount
of work? I have no understanding of programming but I was
hoping to start my own blog soon. Anyways, if you have any ideas
or tips for new blog owners please share. I know this is off subject but I just needed
to ask. Thanks a lot!
This ‘blog’ is truly as little or as much work as you wish to make it… I have been too busy with other projects to properly work on it for quite some time but your comment serves as a good incentive to get back to work on it again! Thank you. The template I chose randomly when I began has been ok but I believe I might have done better to study the choices available more before choosing. I am not very proficient or savvy about how to customize a blog template and actually am unclear how to format many of my posts to make them format correctly and appear in a way that is accessible to visitors. Many thanks for stopping by and commenting. Wishing you all best with your blog! Gratefully, Tom
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