Thornewood Poems
A collection of haiku written on Sunday afternoon, 27 March 1994, at the Thornewood Open Space Preserve in Woodside, California (see the Wikipedia page). Many of these poems were published in various journals, appeared in Thornewood Poems (Foster City, California: Press Here, 1994) and in Thornewood Poems (Napanee, Ontario: Haiku Canada, 1998; same title as the 1994 publication, but with a different selection and format), and also appeared online at Captain Haiku’s Secret Hideout in 1997 (see old site). The 1994 chapbook includes an introduction explaining the genesis of these poems. The entire sequence has also been translated into Hungarian by Gergely László. You can read all of these poems translated into Romanian by Olimpia Iacob. Five of these poems also appeared in the book Haiku Meridians, translated by Olimpia Iacob.
Dedicated to the late D. Claire Gallagher, whose words inspired many of these poems
as she described the various flowers, trees, and other plants we saw together.
a red berry on the trail
I look up
to the chickadee’s song
miner’s lettuce
beside the trail—
fallen toyon berries
a red toyon berry
at the trail’s edge—
the tinkle of a stream
first on the trail—
the pull of a spider’s strand
across my face
a switch-back
in the trail—
I glance at her face
a climbing pea
has lassoed a blade
of crab grass!
trail dust settles—
a shooting star bobs
over a spider’s turret
a slow breeze . . .
sticky-monkey flower
barely moving
noon sun—
fallen bark moss
swaying in a thistle
dried horseshoe prints
more frequent
by the blackberry bramble
passed from nose to nose,
a torn leaf
of pitcher sage
swaying in the shadows
of the ancient oak,
honeysuckle berries
lifting mugwort to her nose . . .
the hangnail
on her thumb
pausing on the trail—
I run my hand
through brush grass
white cabbage butterfly
rises from scattered toyon berries
through the horse’s hooves
the cool of shade—
a swarm of midges
brushes my arm
dried leaves on the trail—
a thistle bends
in fern shadow
broken to the heartwood—
an old meadow elm
after thunder
stopping on the footbridge
to gaze at still pools—
a sparrow’s wings flutter
voices on the trail . . .
the heap of deadwood
clogging the stream
blossoms in the wind-shadow
a hiker stops
to sip his water
dried thistle
bent across the trail . . .
trill of distant chickadee
between the brambles,
a fern’s curve
up the trail
before I sit,
I blow an ant
from the stump’s center
a turn in the trail—
sky in the branches
of red madrone
scent of jasmine . . .
a butterfly’s shadow
over trail mud
just off the wood path,
a mouse’s bones
under a curled leaf
first glimpse—
white swan
in the forest pool
valley coolness—
the trail widens
near the wooded pond
clouds of pollen
drifting through sunbeams—
a sparrow’s sudden flight
the web between stumps—
a tree frog answers
the pond frog
stones on the trail . . .
a downy feather
wafts in the breeze
new shoots
on the big-leaf maple—
how blue the sky, how blue
a mushroom cap
tilting in the sun—
I feel for my bald spot
a white swan shakes her tail
at last the ripples
reach her mate
jays squawk
from redwood tops—
the hush of distant traffic
water striders
keep turning back
from the weir’s edge
at the trail’s end,
the way we sit
beneath the redwoods
late afternoon sun—
jumping in the leaf pile
to hear the crunch
roots exposed
at the trail’s edge . . .
a banana slug’s path
afternoon shade—
moss rubbed off
where the branches touch
