three crab-apple sisters
standing close together
lichen on their dead branches
and on their live ones
tiny yellow fruit
Haiku from Warmer Days
Today, the first snow of the winter came whispering down. In cold weather, smells don’t carry as well. Winter brings with it a different kind of beauty made of solitude, clarity, and dreams in the dark. Here’s a moment from warmer days to dream of:
After dark in the park
the feathery larch
smells me her secrets
Turmoil, Three Miracles
Three small miracles I saw today because I forced myself outside for a walk:
Two tiny finches circling and twittering around one another, one with a bright splash of orange on the top of its head, and another with a bright splash of yellow in the same spot
Three grey tufted titmice, who used to come to my feeder all the time when I lived closer to woods
A whole little flock of birds I don’t know how to identify, but who may be cedar waxwings: the size of a robin, but with a brilliant side patch of orange and an orange beak.
Also, deer tracks.
Some things keep happening in spite of humanity’s foibles. Even in times of great catastrophe, even in times of war and death and turmoil, the sun rises, the spring comes, the leaves fall, the birds migrate.
Haiku Ode to Wind & Rain
how you move the trees
and make a music in their leaves
that eases me
Three Haiku – Daily Constitutional at the Office Park
sunny open field
soft, cool air of late summer
and the maple’s shade
bare feet in the grass
daily constitutional
sans electronics
indescribable
the pleasure that comes from just
a moment outside
On the Morning Walk Haiku
the trees in the swamp
glow yellow and red. the trees
on the hill, still green
Red in Tooth and Claw Haiku
in the summer grass
the cat finds a wounded bird
and begins to play
Henrietta
I remember very little from the years between 1973 and 1980. There’s a simple reason for this, but one that omits a large part of the story. In the years between my birth and our unintentional immigration to the East Coast, I was busy learning how to eat, how to walk, how to use the bathroom, how to dress myself, and how to talk. I was learning about the world that surrounded me, and about my place in it. I was learning what kind of a person I was, and what kind of people had brought me into this world.
In the first decade of the 20th century — a decade variously referred to as the ’00s, the naughts, the oughts, the aughties, and the naughties — the big buzzword in psychological circles was resilience. Resilience was the word used over and over again in the days following the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013. It’s a word that contains within it a kind of boundless optimism often lacking in the discussion of trauma, PTSD, and recovery from same.
Tiny Gratitudes
- Sunflowers painted on the ceiling of an ultrasound exam room
- Getting to an appointment 10 minutes early so I can sit in the car and stop rushing
- Living in a place where the trees are taller than the buildings
- Mentholated cough drops: bits of eucalyptus trees born thousands of miles away, soothing my throat and my lungs
- A tiny white pill that keeps me from breaking into tears every 15 minutes
- Miracle cures that ease cold symptoms, even if they do need to be taken again and again again
- The rain washing down the windshield of the car, softening edges and smearing lights
- The Fort Point Post Office, open 24/7/365, even at 7pm on the Sunday before Christmas
- Working in an industry where skills matter as much as connections
Wild Turkeys Haiku
three turkeys forage
along the side of the road
on my way to work
Garden of Words 