Winter Sunsets

in the gloaming
red contrail crosses sky
silence of crows



Yesterday I enjoyed the absolutely best sunset of 2012! OK, I'll admit it--where exactly was my camera? Back home on the table inside my little pack, forgotten along with my hat and gloves.

My son and I decided to start the new year right by hiking the Pate Hollow Trail in mid-afternoon when the sun finally came out and transformed a windy grey day into a gloriously sunny one.

We took both our dogs to Pate Hollow. The miniature dachshund was not keen on crossing creeks--they had been dry for months. Plus whenever you stopped to wait for him, his first impulse was to turn around and trot back--he's never understood the loop concept. The light reflecting off the bare grey bark of the trees was really beautiful especially on the hillsides when you could see hundreds of trees rising toward the sky. Afterwards we drove down to the campground and were going to watch the sunset but the wind had gotten very blustery and we still had four or five finger-widths to wait. And the dachshund had no more patience for that wind.

We drove back to town and at the gas station saw the western sky glowing red-pink. It almost looked like an aurora and gradually the clouds became purple and the horizon line a blood red. Very dramatic winter sunset.

Now something about haiku. Here's a quote from Jane Reichhold from an Ami Kaye interview at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. I like it because I find it incredibly difficult to write good haiku. For me longer poems come much easier--not that they always come or even come easily. But if I could paint (which I can't)it would be like completing a good painting with three or one or two simply masterful strokes. How likely is that? So this quote is a great way to start the new year with haiku:

"I don’t think the striving for a good haiku is a worthy goal. In fact there are times I can see haiku almost as a ‘throw-away by-product.’ The most important aspect of haiku is the way you must live in order to write haiku. If you live being aware of your senses, trusting them instead of your mind, being non-judgmental, being open to everything and everyone, reverent, accepting yourself and others as not perfect but just what is in this one precious moment of time and rejoicing in life and living it to the fullest – this is your poetry."

Good precepts for living the year with or without the haiku!