.
breaking waves —
walking by the shore
she steps on seashells
.

.
crushed chamomile
an army tank points at
the chicken coop
.

.

all those swallows
and no calendar
in sight
.

.
no prompt —
the sound of melting chocolate
without the taste
.

.
director’s chair –
granny moves it out of
the sun
.

.
harvest –
picking basil leaves
for mother‘s salad
.

London to Munich.
cherry tree blossom
deja vue
.

.
night train —
her shipboard romance
out of steam
.

.
Whitstable beach —
piles of oyster shells
for seeding reefs
…

.
Aegean shores
meltemi brings salt
to your lips
.

.
radiation test
will frogs jump into our pond
next spring?
.

.
stepping on catfish
once again we sit
under open blooms
.
Thanks to Gabi Greve for her link on the catfish quake deity.

.
white silk kimono
on the shrine floor sake
on cherry blossoms
…

The horrendous violence of nature unfolding in Japan, and its effects on people and ‘things,’ made me wonder how words could reduce it to human scale; make it somehow comprehensible to me.

Haiku 11a was an attempt to reduce/freeze the violent, fulminant images I saw on TV to a simple, quiet one: a wedding at the shrine interrupted by the tsunami, the wedding sake spilled, the silk white kimono worn at weddings on the floor…

.
Zorro, open air —
dad cracks pumpkin seeds
with his teeth
.

.
moon shadows —
you let too many petals
fall softly

.

.
déjà vu
outside the city walls
daffodils

.

.
churchyard yew —
smoke rings hover above
teens’ heads

.