Embedded Files
First published in Poetry Nippon (Third Series, Edition Number 1, October 2010, in which I was featured poet), pages 12–14. Originally written in August of 2009, the following are twenty-three haiku in a sequence of forty-five written mostly about Pacific Northwest plants and flowers (a few plants are not native but have been transplanted to the area). Four of these poems and three additional ones on this theme (added at the end here) were also featured on the Daily Haiku site in 2009. See also “More Northwest Plants and Flowers” for nineteen additional poems.
red birches—
the sunset mellows
as we amble
roots of the river birch—
a salmon’s carcass
still a bit red
a sweet gum tree
tips toward the pond—
distant thunder
dawn redwood roots
the tangle of dendrites
where I love you
shore pines
creak in the wind—
your offshore love
Japanese barberry
for dinner
you suggest sushi
redtwig dogwoods
the neighbour boy with a bat
feigning innocence
she tells me
it’s a red osier dogwood
how would I know she loves me?
cutting salal
away from the house
the young widow
shrubby cinquefoil
taking over
the puppy’s grave
Douglas’s spirea
newly planted
our gloved hands touch
bridal wreath spirea
all the centerpieces
on the center table
gold sweetflag
glowing in the sun
my daughter’s smile
the deadness
of wood anemone
your letter at last
ice-dance sedge
edging onto the trail
missed chemo session
pink fawn lily
the abandoned bunker
wet with graffiti
daylilies nodding
the commuter train
sounds its horn
crickets stop
a lost golf ball
in the royal fern
an undergrowth
of Western sword fern
my forgotten pills
barren strawberry
she tells me now
of her first marriage
black gum trees
bend toward the trail
impending storm
bald cypress woods
the naturalist practices
her birdcall
Chinese tupelo
for some reason
I think of flutes
Darwin’s barberry
the place where
the skid marks stop
the black elder
shakes its shadow loose
early snowfall
snowberries
have come and gone
lost horizon
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