From Montage

The following poems all appeared in Montage: The Book, edited by Allan Burns (Winchester, Virginia: The Haiku Foundation, 2010), after previously appearing together on the Haiku Foundation’s Montage webpage in December 2009. My poems appeared with poems by Randy Brooks and David Cobb in a set referred to as “Halcyon Days” (view PDF file). Editor Allan Burns introduced this collection by saying that “Our featured poets approach this broad, loose theme in a variety of ways, engaging all the senses and evoking idyllic instances of lost time,” and says “Michael Dylan Welch, a prolific haikuist named after Dylan Thomas, founded Press Here and the journal Tundra and coined the immortal term “déjà-ku.” The first three poems previously appeared in The Haiku Anthology, edited by Cor van den Heuvel (Norton, 1999, third edition), and in other publications. The remaining poems first appeared in The Heron’s Nest, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku.



                                                                                                first snow . . .
                                                                                                the children’s hangers
                                                                                                clatter in the closet


paper route
       knocking a row of icicles
       from the eave


                                                                                                spring breeze—
                                                                                                the pull of her hand
                                                                                                as we near the pet store


crackling beach fire—
we hum in place of words
we can’t recall


                                                                                                wedding reception—
                                                                                                the weight of her bottle
                                                                                                on the lip of my cup


under the afghan—
    reading Huck Finn
        by penlight


                                                                                                sudden quiet
                                                                                                after the computer power-down . . .
                                                                                                risen moon