Life With Horace

poetry & essays

Tag Archives: haiku


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haiku for elizabeth with notes

gift from love’s pilgrim
my words have danced in your heart
they leap free again

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yesterday the Third Cousins Club met again. three cousins, Cassie, Elizabeth, and me, descended in separate lines from the same great great grandfather, knowing nothing of the others until an accidental discovery grew into a connection that has joined three family lines. Elizabeth’s sister Susan was there at the beginning with all of us, but she died this year. So Elizabeth has just made what I can only think of as a pilgrimage to the ocean places they loved together. what a brave and loving sister gift this was, saying goodbye again, ashes left to be a part of memories.


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haiku for a kiss with notes

gold eye of the sun
reaches over mountain arm
gentle morning touch

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the position of the sun in late August here makes sunrise a delicate process. you see, the sun has already “risen” by the time it comes to Bear Farm. We are tucked into one of the mountain’s arms and the first sunlight edges leaves and needles of the tree crowns. gently.


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a haiku for midsummer heat with notes

heat blankets the skin
my bones lay it down against
the thought of winter

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the extremes of summer and winter call to each other; one recent february was so unremittingly cold that I vowed to remember it come summer, and not complain!


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haiku for a friend with notes

see each forward step
my own not for another
true gift of friendship

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The way forward for a friend sometimes seems clear to me, but not for them. The hard thing is to step back, find the wisdom to make changes in my own life, and let them work it out. They already know that I care.

Horace, black on black


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haiku for tuesday with notes

accepting the muse
black head warms my foot again
reaching for note book

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Horace likes to sit under the kitchen table when I write, with his head across my foot. I had planned to write later in the day today, but clearly my muse thought otherwise.

squirrel pantry


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haiku for wednesday with notes

red squirrel leaping
apple held fast in its mouth
single thought is food

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Day 27. An encounter with a determined little red squirrel. I was outside eating a green apple. The squirrel saw me; I waved at him, apple in hand, then tossed it, almost eaten, on the grass near a rhododendron. Running around the back of the bush the squirrel emerged at the front, snatching the apple and ran up a spruce tree with it. Came back down a minute or two later. Looking for the nest I imagined to be in the tree, I came upon the squirrel’s pantry. The apple sat on one of the branches.