Category Archives: writing

Haiku, Nov ‘23 (first half)

Haiku October ‘23

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10/1
Asters five feet tall
hosting a cohort of bees.
Beauty with purpose.

10/2
How can I think when
jackhammers and lawn machines
pound and roar and pound.

10/3
Squinting. Morning glare.
Does she hold lanyard or leash?
To Finn it matters.

10/4
Called a bearcat though
Bronx Zoo Kevin is neither.
Real name: Binturong.

10/5
Innocent bird flamed
by crisis. Antique fire truck
won’t help. Where we are.

10/6
A winding road through
Lincoln where trees are turning
and heartache resides.

10/7
“Oh look! There she is!”
Museum-goer when Madame
X came into view.

10/8
Another Sunday.
We walk around Crystal Lake
in reverse. Wild times!

10/9
Sukkot branches flung
off the frame. Grief not joy
in every toss.

10/10
Acorns tear through leaves
succumbing to gravity.
Violence of fall.

10/11
Clean the colander,
feel like crying. Walk the dog,
bathe, feel like crying.

10/12
Another treasure.
“Is it the snake or just skin?”
Crushed head in my palm.

10/13
“Oh no! It’s splodging!”
“Oh soddin’ hell! It’s so bad.”
Devonshire splits test.

10/14
Soft air, blue sky; we’ll
take the T to Copley Square.
A good day for books.

10/15
Instead of two hands,
six. Vote yes on issue one!
Ohio postcards.

10/16
Two Barbaras from
Cleveland writing postcards to
Ohio with me.

10/17
Unrelenting grief
and terror, bombast, so
I watch The Closer.

10/18
Dentist’s office with
dead branch outside and clutter
on the windowsill.

10/19
Pong! Pong! Black walnuts
being run over. Thud! Thud!
Thud! Hitting the ground.

10/20
SOS. What does
it mean in a centuries
old conflagration?

10/21
Cinnamon rot, the
smell of fall. Bronzing clethra
and plump hawk, the sights.

Another:
I fell in love with
a dog today. What day don’t
I? Fluffy, white, sweet.

10/22
Abigail Adams?
Of course not, dope! She’s Elsa.
Brother, caped and masked.

10/23
Stringy poop. Kleenex?
Oh no — a worm? He pulls, pulls:
embroidery floss.

10/24
We smell caramelized
sugar down near the T tracks.
Donuts? Apple cake?

10/25
Every morning I
fling treats around the backyard.
“Find it!” And he does.

10/26
He was renting shoes
when the shooting began. He
ran, hid behind pins.

10/27
Stunted oak, scrub pines
Slow traffic on Route 6 East.
Sunset on the bay.

10/28
Winking light diamonds
and the wooshing surf say, Rest,
little darling. Rest.

10/29
Pewter sky, flat sea
gun metal grey. Beauty does
not require sun.

10/30
Stitching a bird now.
The flannel house is tacked down.
Watch me make a moon.

10/31
October sun glares.
Yellow leaves glow. But winter
chill laces the air.

September ‘23 Haiku

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9/1
Scraps woven and sewn
into a sweet blue turtle.
Now she needs a home.

9/2
The sandy gravel
littering the shade garden:
downpour evidence.

9/3
Why penny whistles
for the guy who can whistle
lilts, Brahms, Bach, The Who?

9/4
After clams, a walk
to the Old Burial Ground.
They lived in slave times.

Eunice, Tyler, John,
Samuel, Martha, Lucy.
Lichen on granite.

9/5
Recycling: a scam
to make boomers feel better
about consumption.

9/6
On a dare, a boy
eats super hot nachos. Dies.
Please make it make sense.

9/7
The year’s hottest day.
Five thousand steps before ten.
Where are all the birds?

9/8
Season of the stoop.
Power saws. Demolition.
Pencils behind ears.

9/10
Trees held in the glass
tabletop turn eating eggs
into religion.

9/10
Two bins of cloth strips.
Three inch, two. Pink, black, grey, blue.
Archeology.

9/12
Glass lined room, fish tank
like in the wet gloom. A hawk
flashes past. Ah, air!

9/13
There is a quiet
in the neighborhood. Not at
all like September.

9/14
I slept like a lamb
and woke to a day free of
rain. Hallelujah!

9/15
Bracing for the storm
means closing the umbrellas.
A few cacti in.

9/16
Grassy paths, stone steps.
Pink hydrangeas and asters.
Granite for the dead.

9/17
Dappled legs, four. Heads
tilted close, two. Friends walking
through shade on Cypress.

9/18
How it rains, rains, rains,
and rains, as if Seattle.
But it’s not. We’re east.

9/19
The hydrangeas bloom
in pretty exuberance.
Softening tarmac.

9/20
I made corn fritters,
Claire brought cookies, Pat stories.
Kathleen looked well. Yeah!

9/21
A memorial
made of sheets pegged to a line.
Wind testimony.

9/24
Blustery breeze off
the St. Lawrence. A chilly
Québécois farewell.

9/25
Scarlet berries dot
the female holly bushes
and I’ve made curry.

9/28
Crickets sing sad songs
of nostalgia. Childhood in
a chorus of chirps.

9/29
Like so many days
I wake to trucks’ shrill beeping.
Tree work racket now.

Canada, clutter, and prompts

10 Replies

Passport. CHECK. Mouth guard and meds. CHECK (but didn’t have to carefully tuck them in carry on bag in case suitcase gets lost). Sewing, reading, and writing notebooks. CHECK (you’d think I’d have an elegant handmade etui to hand, but I don’t. I just stick needles and pins in whatever swatch of fabric is handy).

Our lovely house sitter will be taking GQ-level photos of Finn again no doubt. I can’t tell you how comforted I was to learn that she’d held a piece of cheese to her forehead for some of her darling shots from last trip.

I consolidated heaps of fabric and windexed here and there. The difference was relieving, noticeable. K said, “I’d live here,” which tells you something about his dry wit. What it perhaps doesn’t reveal as readily is how forbearing he is of my clutter.

Question to crafters: are works-in-progress demeaned by the label “clutter”?

Never mind that. What would be really hilarious if it weren’t so hypocritical is that I dare to ask him to please put his shoes away!

Traffic on 128 is bad. The trees are green. I will report back as we travel north. We may be in for some pretty foliage.

I’m excited to be going to Quebec City. Our older son went to McGill, so we’ve made many trips to Montreal in recent history, but I haven’t been to Quebec City since my French class traveled there in 1975.