12 December 2021 (jetty)

winter walk on the jetty

a rogue wave

wets my legs

26 September 2020 (plover)

storm surge

the calls of the plover

diminish

22 September 2020 (surf)

island trail

walking into

the surf’s roar

10 August 2020 (stone)

staring into waves

even this beach stone

was once mud

26 January 2020 (scoters)

high seas

disappearing :: reappearing

surf scoters

In the haiku class I’m teaching now, we discussed the potential use of a double colon. Kala Ramesh says,

“The double colon is there to create an unweighted pause. A pause in the breath, a pause in thought. A pause that is different than the weighted or directional relationship our standard punctuation indicates. And that is also different than a hard line break. The two sides of the thought-pause may exist in harmony or in ambiguity.... ”

October 28: Ferry ride

It’s amazing—

the human capacity

for staring out to sea.

September 29: Wave action

Waves crashing

the length of the harbor.

Late night conversation.

January 16: Calm seas

Sunrise, MLK Day--

waves off the point

practicing non-violence.

Posted with Blogsy

September 22: The sea's a metronome

Despite the chill

I keep my window open

so waves lull me to sleep.

Posted with Blogsy

August 21: Sermons in stones

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds... sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it." --William Shakespeare, in As You Like It

Sea-stones tell their stories--

the main character is time,

waves drive the plot.

 

Posted with Blogsy

August 15: Elizabeth Bishop Symposium

The North Haven (Island) Library hosted a symposium over the past two days celebrating Elizabeth Bishop, one of my favorite poets. I attended this morning's session, which entailed taking an early boat from Rockland and returning by ferry this afternoon, head full of thoughts about Bishop's life and poems, while across the water clouds piled up dramatically over the Camden Hills.

In honor of this event, I thought I'd give myself the exercise of starting off today's haiku with a line of Bishop's poem "North Haven":

Nature repeats herself--
waves rock the ferry,
storm-petrels weave among them.