It’s that time again.
The first snowfall
of winter, like the last
will soon disappear
It’s that time again.
The first snowfall
of winter, like the last
will soon disappear
Today’s haiku is actually a tanka, just to see if you’re paying attention. As always, you can respond in haiku if you wish, or not in haiku, for that matter. Enjoy.
A cardinal, its fire
blazing red,
on the last green branch
summer hopes
frozen
Feel free to respond with haiku of your own in the comments.
Blossoms in winter
Like you
Hold their secrets
If one thing is as good as the next,
if, returning to the nest, the hawk finds
nothing changed though some infinitesimal
bit of mouse has become fledgling,
if time is measured mostly in breaths
until even they fade to nothing,
replaced by sunrise and sunset,
if all this is true, there’s room for
some small satisfaction at the movement
of air from the passing blade of the reaper,
having missed once more.
Maybe there’s nothing more than this
to immortality — the thin, movable wedge
between life and death.
A breath of reason, quiet
As a slumbering guard,
Easy as falling, effortless
As unknowing.
Then whimsy shifts the burden
And our wings become despair,
The high notion of pointlessness
When all visible light fails
And only the path remains,
Unlit and wholly
Vulgar as a bishop,
Only more like a cat in heat.
The ancient wisdoms fail to impress
Upon us the hasty times
In which we live,
With left baggage
From countless dead hours,
From times when it took
Only a second thought
To kill an idea,
When enslaved and enslavers alike
Believed the same corrupt verses,
When change was a thing
Of generations.
So ring cold the wind,
Bring down the ancient will to
Dance, among the chosen,
And sing, among the frozen.
The old cycles continue,
Now stronger, now weaker,
But always sure-footed, inevitable
Unto the unforeseeable.
The same skills — to kill,
To hunt, to take away without
Hesitation — still function
But how long?
Geology is gaining on us.
Our charts are uncertain,
Blank just where we need them,
Gaping lacunae for us to leap into.