6 February 2019 (waxwings)

flock of waxwings

gathered in morning light

and I gaping 

5 February 2019 (shadows)

a brief thaw

long shadows of trees

stretching in sunlight

4 February 2019 (street light)

new moon

street light standing in

as a substitute

3 February 2019 (Super Bowl)

river’s applause

from the open window

Super Bowl Sunday

2 February 2019 (opera)

after the opera

humming Carmen’s aria

in my cold car

1 February 2019 (cat)

morning ritual

cat following the sun

around the house

31 January 2019 (prayer flags)

frozen in place

string of prayer flags

blessing the icicles

30 January 2019 (egrets)

NB: Haiku are not supposed to have titles; a title is seen as a “fourth line,” an over-explanatory crutch. My “titles” have usually been a word or two as a reference for me to find a particular haiku again when I scroll through a month’s worth of posts. Even including that much, though, has bothered me, because I didn’t want them to be thought of or read as titles. So for now, I’m only going to “title” my haiku with the date. I’ll probably keep it up until the day I spend an hour searching for a specific haiku...

Today’s haiku is a variation of a response I made to some woodblock print images that I posted today as a prompt for my Virtual Haiku Workshop group on Facebook (if you’re on FB and interested, please send a request to join us). 

Egrets in Snow (1927) by O’Hara Shoson (Koson) 

white magic

snow disappearing

on the heron's back

29 January 2019 (power outage)

power outage

the purring motor

of the cat

January 28: Shell

snail shell

in an old coat pocket

what we cling to

January 27: Nuthatch

head down

nuthatch scrolling birch bark

fine print