Haiku and the Yearly Round

Haiku and the Yearly Round
Summer \| Autumn \| Winter \| Spring
Summer Yellow straw bales Cooling on the fields: Winter flakes An oak cluster Already turning yellow: July fifth Wisteria's full green Trailing blue orphans Aging in the afternoon sun Summer Heat In the thicket of trees The enormous black bull: Balls and eyes hanging Karen's Sunflower Sunflower's face still Nodding at Eleven September The sad-eyed man At the Solar Fair His arms full of sunflowers Top of Page	Daniel Marlin - Bay Field Neponsit, New York
*Autumn*
A single leaf Drifting: Autumn Starting the car: Your moist mild dark So long coming to morning Autumn To Eda At Nine Overhead the sky flew westward Half moon winked in the moving stream I asked the air to where they're going My breath followed in a cloud of steam Lone cricket trilling To the tinted moon: Hallowe'en The Professor Campbell tells how to die And just out the window Brittle brown leaf waves Top of Page	Photo by Helen Buttfield
Winter
Praying for my mother A moment silent By the winter rose vines Dedicated to Rose Cecelia Ray April 21, 1914-April 13, 1969 Stand here in the frozen stubble The snowy adieu December leaves "Poor January babies Friends broke-- Just forget about a present" Opal Minor, Willits, January 1991 January frog Rough warbling in the garden With Bessie's Hot Five Falling winter Yellow yoke sun You break my heart White moth tracing The long edge of window-pane: Many more winter weeks Bats weave twilight; Frogs tuning; Bamboo leaf shivers: February rain All winter rising To prepare the bowl for her Our new-buried cat Rains slanting on the goat And the dropping sun: Early February Wind! Rain! Darkness! Oak trees crashing! Sky split with lightning! And everywhere: Peace Top of Page	Photograph by Jane English
Spring
Lit from our table Diamonds of first Spring rain Make up for the stars Nature's First Rust In the unceasing winds Furls turn tassels then spikes Feather-like Become rusty slick drooping hands Sun gives them their green Darkening they rise and spread As oak leaf, a skin far from bone The density of our own Thin scarecrow hanging on the fence He'll get fat this summer Van Gogh, Beeches Mansfield Mass. Beech Tree We didn't know the tree's name Only its sweet heaven fragrance High ridge back of the house Half my life I drank your waters Distant lights of town in window She works at the bright cloth Aging girl Spring morning working on the gate Fleeting rainbow in the West Quail plump as softballs Skip to snip the young shoots Cleaned window to 'Appalachian Spring' On the floor A brindled moth Under cherry tree The cushion of wet petals Rained to earth The downed orchard trees: Their tips just coming into blossom Plum blossom petal Blown by the storm To my car door So much life Herons feeding in the wetland No more rain today Grey heron near the cattle No enmity on the creatures' earth Pinto herding the kid Nod once, twice, good-- You're in the goat band now The llama comically alert To buttercups across the road Saxophone meanders soul to soul Fingertips rest on the cloth threads Bartok, Satie, our Jewish George I shut my eyes the blindness is warm Sounds suffuse and grow Dust motes rise and fall The universe of A morning in June Seashell ear at the night window Oh the cricket myriads SEE-shall Skate-flies A lone sparrow My hand curved in the river: Early morning Sunlight in the web Of my thumb and forefinger Early morning Tai Chi For A Married Couple 1 On the pond two ducks Drifting together in sleep Sunlight will wake them 2 Across late sunlight The speeding birdflock--above Clouds flying faster Gwendolyn The Dog Brown eyes big as suns Still there blinding me In the West Little Richard on Macon Georgia "When the rooster crow And the train go by-- Sleep!-- You done had yo' nightlife!" Old Memory Seven Haiku 1 Though asleep I knew you lay nearby And touched your side We were joined once 2 As you slumber I touch the rib Formed while you slipped Soundless from my side 3 As you slumber I touch the rib We shared before soundless You slipped away 4 You sleep I touch your side When did you slip Dreaming From my heart? 5 Asleep I touch A perfect form When did you slip Dreaming From my heart? 6 Soundless you slipped Out my side In the dark now The dream is not finished 7 Soundlessly you slipped Out my side We sleep floating onward In the dream Theban Girl, Photo by Roloff Beny Rain Great rain O great Great Rain The Tao Life brief Gods obscure Nothing still Top of Page \| Next Chapter	Photo by Roloff Beny