Sweeping Away Yesterday's Beauty

scattered on the deck
magnolia blossoms—
stroll across yesterday



For me part of the intensity of spring, is its utter ephermerality: the gorgeous blossoms, gentle and fragrant winds, the peeping of frogs at night. Here for a few weeks and then gone. How much more rushed than usual is this year with its super-early spring after a record-breaking warm winter. Yesterday, I noticed lilacs blooming! Lilacs that usually arrive at the dance so late-in May.

Here's a quote by British poet, Anne Rouse, "Poetry is about the intensity at the centre of life..." The best haiku pulse with the aliveness of the natural world from the delicate violet to the cloud-skimming redwood, from the mud-clump of snail to the giant blue whale.

Submersibles and a Flowering Pear Tree

first spring bike ride
swallowing a fly
by accident


“Poetry is about the intensity at the centre of life…” Anne Rouse

Even though it wasn't written for it, I like this quote to describe haiku. A haiku is about the ordinary moment bored through. Not bored from the word boring, but bored to the center of things, that long squiggly drill going deep, deep under the sea (similar to what James Cameron just did in his new submersible) or under the earth not bringing up rare minerals but the very essence of life.

Goals to be worked toward not reached.

A Cardinal Showing off His Crimson or Feathers vs. Petals

cardinal alights
on the magnolia branch-
a flurry of pink


How quickly beauty fades. Especially in this rushed, frantic winter/spring/summer of 2012. Imagine, 80 degree days before the vernal equinox. Now at least we can say it's Spring.

At dusk, I stare at our stately magnolia and notice that below it the deck is littered with thousands of browning petals, fallen away in nature's exuberant excess. Only about forty blossoms remain; they look forlorn spread among so many branches.

I've been reading a book called Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Interviews with America's Poets edited by Alexander Neubauer. In it poet, haikuist, and Japanese scholar Gary Snyder said this about wildness and poetry, "I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”

Of course that's far too big a task for a haiku but celebrating the soil, its gifts, and our animal companions--no matter how tiny or big--is something we can set our hearts and minds to.

Magnolia Time

magnolia blossoms
foregrounded before sunrise—
bird chorus


Spring is proceeding at a frantic pace--in the 80s already--though the season does not officially start until later this week. One of the joys of spring for me is when our old and stately magnolia blossoms in the back yard. I watch it all times of the day and night (though you can't really see the colors at night, but you can still sense the enveloping presence of hundreds of blossoms above you.) Last Tuesday when the unseasonably warm weather moved in, it started to bloom.

Today it's in full bloom. As clouds billow and occasionally block the sun, the colors of the flowers keep changing with the light. A moment ago, a red cardinal alighted on a branch. How roguish he looked among the extravagant blossoms.

Summer in Mid-March

even the lake
wants to enter the cool
of the forest


Three hundred weather records broken across the US the CBS evening news reported. Here in B-town we hit a surprising 80 degrees. This bizarre temperature when it's still officially winter makes me worry about the future of our planet.

Yet, still the day was delightful. The dandelions have changed nearly overnight from green vertical stems to large yellow flowers. And the trees are budding all over town. Our magnolia's first pink blossoms uncurled today. Gorgeous.

In Cahoots with the Moon

veering close
Venus and Jupiter--
loud chirping of frogs

Tonight, if you head to the right place even on busy Smith Road in eastern Bloomington, you can hear the frogs chirp and in between skittering clouds, catch a few glimpses of Jupiter and Venus heading toward their big conjunction on the 15th. Hopefully, we'll have clear skies. But they have been traveling close together all this month, in cahoots with the waxing moon.

On our way down to Kentucky on Friday, Tom and I drove some Indiana back roads. At several places, even in the early afternoon, the frog chorus was so loud you could hear them even with the windows closed. They were forested places away from farms with a lot of standing grand water. Each time I heard the loud chirping of hundreds (maybe thousands) of frogs, I rolled the window down and allowed those amazing sounds to flow all around us. It's such a dynamic, primeval sound as though the mud itself were churning into life.

I love March with its newborn energy, everything madly rushing into bloom. Our magnolia tree is full of huge wooly-worm looking buds. A week away, I'd guess, from bursting into wild pink blossoms.

Between Rain and the Rainbow

pouring rain
jazz on the car radio—
weaving between potholes

Rushing toward Another Equinox

how quick the paws
of the squirrel dismembering
last year’s walnut


Here's my favorite recently-discovered haiku quote, “The poet is an animal with the sun in his belly." It's by Raymond Roseliep who was a Catholic priest. Oh, but it's not specific to haiku at all. But how do we actualize it? Take this star shine that whizzes across all those miles of our solar system filling us with warmth and life, and incorporate its heat into our poems?

Upside Down Trees and Killer Weather

how still
the trees are before
the big storm


Powerful tornados ripped through Indiana on Friday killing some, destroying many houses, businesses, and a large school where school buses were yanked off their axels just an hour or so after transporting the students home early. One blond-haired toddler was lifted by the wind and found in a wood by strangers. Bloomington was under a tornado watch for hours and although strong winds swirled around us, the storms bypassed us.