Sundial

Sundial, time's shadow
Traces the patina'd face,
Falls across my own

Looking glass

Looking glass image
The silver reflection is
No more than mirage

Things lost

Beauty of things lost:
An heirloom locket, a love,
The faith of childhood

Transformation

Birds sing the morning
Into day; your love summons
Me into being

Refugee

Old refugee
Wrinkles carved deep
As her suffering

Wish

Baroque fountain
The hopeful child
Casts her copper wish

Witness

Bearing witness
Willow weeps over
A new grave

Broken

One-hundred aspects
Reflect in broken mirror
Of my shattered heart

Riverdance

A dancing bouquet
Yellow butterflies blossom
On the river's edge

Undone

In every wild bud
Summer comes
Undone

Flight

Dandelion seeds:
Fledgling summer
Takes flight

Iris

Banks of white iris
Sway in the breeze, their beauty
Fleeting as my own

Concert

High school symphony
Straining to see my daughter
In forest of bows

Mystery II

Cast off illusion
Dwell in the house of doubt where
To know is to die

Earth perfume

A revelation
Carried on the breeze, perfume
Of fresh-plowed humus

Church bells

Church bells' somber chime
An enumeration of
Error and regret

New life

Within your embrace
A new creature I quiver
Like a fresh-furled leaf

Datura

Whirling dervishes
Datura's white petals yearn for
Sacred ecstacy

After disbelief

What remains when disbelief has gone? ~Philip Larkin

After disbelief
Nothing to profess, recant
To thine own self true

Aperture

Through the aperture
Of retrospect, prismed past
Shimmers a mirage

Known world

Bounds of the known world:
Far as I see in your eyes
Wide as your embrace

The cross

Torturous planks, less
Crucifix than bridge crossing
The mortal chasm

Bridge

Bridge, mediator
Of earth divided, beauty
In form, metaphor

Droplets

After rain, droplets
Hang globular on branches
Refracting the world

Sunday morning surf

Sunday morning surf
Communion of sea and sand
Where God's voice moves still

Celadon

In celadon spring
Nature is a green-glazed bowl
Ready for the kiln

Memory II

A reliquary,
Memory, littered with pain,
Exquisite beauty

Melancholy

In gloom and shadow,
Illusions haunt elusive
Sleep, no tomorrow

Love letter

An avowal, each
Vernal petal, unlike my
Unsent love letter

Sudden spring

Spring comes unbidden
Longed-for then suddenly blooms
In full profusion

Valentine

As to sun dogwood
Opens first blossoms, to you
I open my heart

Metamorphosis

As caterpillar
Emerges butterfly, so
Winter flowers spring

Extravagance

An extravagance,
This luminous day and you
And I together

Spirit house

In the spirit house
Of my body dwells passion
Married to rapture

Wolf Moon

Guardian of night
Lighting the boundless dark of
Howling loneliness

Evanescence

Snowflakes in my hair
A last farewell as you and
Snow will melt away

Gray

Winter's gray embrace
Gathers in melancholy
Even sparrow song

Snowflakes

Snowflakes fall
Haiku
From heaven

In the beginning

Creation's big bang,
Universe is conceived in
Cosmic orgasm

French kiss

French kiss, silent tongues
Seeking, answering, praising
Love's lingua franca

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!