Haiku
vanishing into*
what's left of the woods
9 wild turkeys
*appearing in a short essay I wrote in the current issue of
Modern Haiku
rare June rain
a sparrow catches
the crumbs I miss
November
acorn
I too am ready
to be planted
winter
songbirds—
I can’t name them but I hear
dad among them
first sunlight
after days of rain. . .
I’ve nothing to add
right on time. .
.
a ladybug lands
on her gravestone
March
sunshine—
all day in the driveway
the Sunday paper
first sunlight
in days
all through breakfast she stares
out the window, dazed
back under
the covers
where me and the make-believe
mice resume our play
moving
the day along
three cups of green tea
no direction
home
I wait for the moon to
take me by the hand
cold Sunday
morning
the heater and I
finally come on
winter sunshine
in place of snow predicted for
the first time in 30 years
dad’s back
two weeks before his birthday
this mocking bird
last day of
winter
sliced up
venetian blinds
bustling mall
I whip around in search of dad
Old Spice
returning from
church
my mate a little
more irascible
long winter day
I coax the sun
inside
the old
neighbor
who never left the block
flying his kite
winter
morning
the cold I thought I had
gone with the clouds
snow on Mt.
Tam
so long in the closet
their cross country skis
About Robert
Epstein, US
Robert Epstein
is a licensed psychologist, freelance writer and published
haiku poet who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay
Area. His haiku have appeared in Acorn,bottle rockets,
Frogpond, Mariposa, Modern Haiku, moonset and other
publications. He has edited two anthologies: The
Breath of Surrender: A Collection of Recovery-Oriented Haiku
and Dreams Wander On: Contemporary Poems of
Death Awareness. Robert created a blog as a forum
for poetry written with awareness of one's own mortality:
http://deathawarenesshaiku.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-am-new-to-blogging-world-but-i-want.html.
He is currently
at work on another anthology, The Temple Bell Stops:
Contemporary Poems of Grief, Loss and Change.
This is Robert Epstein's first
Sketchbook appearance.
