… as a spiritual practice, i read haiku, twelve at a time… i learn broadly about moments right here, right now…
… i read about midnight frost and borrowing the shirt of a scarecrow; dusk dimming the eyes of hawks and quail chirping; spiders singing in the autumn wind; calm moons and gay boys fearing the howling of foxes (do foxes howl?); human sadness, the cry of a single cukoo; sadness, morning glories and bad paint jobs; that banana trees are superior to bush clover; the painting of field stubble black by winter rain; first snows on bridges only half finished (this in particular strikes me as a metaphor for the plans we make for our lives, ever the unfinished work, we leave this world still without ever finishing); cocks crowing, hard winter rain, cow sheds; bamboo groves hiding winter storms; that winter worlds have one color brushed by the wind…
birds praising the dawn
the dog paces
its a new day
… my attempt at a haiku sort of poem… one thing the Robert Hass translations have given me is freedom from the syllable structure…