Sammamish Haiku

The first nine of the following twenty poems appeared in the City of Sammamish Ten-Year Comprehensive Plan in 2015, with artwork by Anna Macrae (click to enlarge the image shown here). Each poem is featured on a separate section divider, as shown here, and is repeated at the top of the following page. After the first nine poems are eleven additional poems about Sammamish, the city where I’ve lived since January of 2003. Five of the following poems (“ghosts,” “a walk in the woods,” “pine lake sunset,” “trail work party,” and “all that’s left”) also appear on “Washington Poetic Routes,” an online poetry project by 2018–2021 Washington State poet laureate Claudia Castro Luna (when you visit the site, click the dot that represents Sammamish, just east of Seattle, where you can also listen to an audio recording of the poems). “Sammamish” is of Native American origin. According to the Sammamish Heritage Society, the name is “derived from samma, meaning ‘the sound of the blue crane,’ and mish, meaning ‘river.’” Sammamish is a great place to live, and CNN Money magazine agrees, numerous times ranking the city as one of the top-15 places to live in the United States, such as the #9 ranking in 2018, with Forbes magazine ranking Sammamish #1 in its 2012 list of the friendliest towns in the country. And in 2015 Sammamish was the #1 city in the entire country with the highest percentage of households earning $100,000 or more. I’m glad to live here. Enjoy these poems!     +     +

“Your contributions added such a lovely touch, illustrating the beauty of the community that we serve. Thank you for all that you do for us.”

—Kathleen Huckabay, Sammamish Deputy Mayor