Snow moon

December snow moon
Only train's plaintive whistle
Shatters the stillness

Led Zepplin heaven

Such music angels
Will play when I ascend the
Stairway to heaven

Alate gem

Dragonfly wing, one
Fragile iridescence found
Beauty abandoned

Monochrome

Snow-drifted landscape,
A veiled bride pauses outside
White clapboard chapel

Hunter moon

Through barren branches
Trees peer at hunter moon hid
In cloud-camouflage

Three weeks

Happy birthday, Andy

They're small creatures, and they are filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not moan in happiness? The little worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks. Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand that life is a blessing. ~Mary Oliver

Three weeks, a lifetime
Of joy, pain, love; taste of these
Blessings? Bittersweet

The amateur

Amateur--lover,
From the Latin--mark me an
Avid dilettante

Cup of tea

Steaming cup of tea,
Translucent green tastes of spring
Outside, brisk fall breeze

Bonsai

Sculpted symmetry
In botanical haiku:
A meditation

On rooted beauty
Pared to spiritual essence
Pre-Mies van der Rohe

Or pious Quakers
For whom simplicity was
Art--both means and end

Illusion of dance,
Miniature arabesque
In graceful (re)pose--

Aesthetics distilled
In sentient architecture--
Still life perfected

Harvest moon I

Curtain of clouds parts,
Night sky midwifes harvest moon,
The birth of autumn

Office of dead languages

To name is to know and remember. Dana Gioia

Stilled tongue of a past
People: way of life, naming,
Knowing the world, dead

Cricket song

Crickets' creaking fills
The audible world with
Inaudible desire

Mist rising

Mist, water spirits
Captivated by sunlight,
Ascends to heaven

Enough

To want just enough--
No feast nor famine, at peace
With sufficiency

Trout rising

Rainbow trout rises,
Catching new mayflies, merging
Iridescences

Bell

Church bell's mute tongue loosed
Its song pealing through the fog,
Diaphanous fugue

Walking after rain

Walking after rain,
Light is like inhabiting
A Homer painting

Day moon

Full moon at daylight,
Gilt orb hangs translucent in
Nacred newborn sky

Sound of water

Water falling, sound
Of God's voice, epiphany
In trickle and roar

Perseids

Translate night sky's scroll
Limned with meteoric Morse
Code, stars' pulsing Braille

Petunia and bee

Potted petunia
Opens fuschia to the bee,
Who seduces whom?

Broken

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places. ~Ernest Hemingway

Blue-and-white teacup,
Broken and mended, like me,
Life's fractured beauty

Abandoned house

Weathered house, kudzu-
Choked, windows shattered, heirloom
Roses in full bloom

Birth of Venus

Venus, born of foam,
Risen fully formed, wringing
Water from her hair

Ginkgo

Dance of a thousand
Fans, ginkgo leaves' fluttering
Beguiles frenzied light

Bones of the earth

Rocky mountain range:
Soil-flesh pared from stone-spine, bones
Of the earth laid bare

Aspen

Silver-green spangled
Leaves tremble like castanets
Atop smooth white bark

Pastoral anachronism

Holsteins idle at
River's edge, a Dutch landscape
Near the interstate

First color

What color is an
Infant's first room, mother's womb,
Ripe pomegranate?

Lisa's breakfast

"THIS is my kind of
Cereal!" she beams, mouth full
Of Rice-Crispy treat

A river runs through

Born via water,
Evolved from it, embodied
Stream of consciousness

Sunday afternoon at the creek

Wade to the middle:
Feel primordial sludge 'tween
Toes, slip on slick stone

Bearded iris

Bearded iris, no
Mere fleur-de-lis, flaunts purple-
Tinged labial falls

Palimpsest

Many-layered time
Erased, repeated--the past
Bleeds through--deja vu

Wyoming

Wyoming landscape
In your wild, arid beauty
I see my own face

Welcome!

I have long been a haiku fanatic. As host of a friend's asian-themed bridal shower, instead of the ridiculous traditional games, I had the guests each write a haiku for the bride and groom, which I compiled and presented them as a wedding gift.

Day-to-day, I often notice a scene, frequently in nature, that is stunning, and I want to capture it.

So this blog is my putting 2 and 2 together. A kind of poetic diary. Enjoy!