Mid Spring Haiku
18 poems from mid spring, 2022
Darting through the pink reef of crab apple blossoms orange orioles.
Petals fluttering from the trees, decorating the van’s broad surface.
Field full of deer, still so much grass—the absolute hugeness of my mind.
This spring we planted a number of very small native trees around the farm. The day after we planted, we walked the property to mark them all with flags, and found that the deer had already discovered them. The poem below is about this.
--- Marking tiny trees, their frailty clear—the fresh dirt punched with circling hooves.
Cold spring—a scraggly row of peas appears after two weeks of waiting.
Monthly red swell, well of blood blooming on cotton underwear liners.
Cold mid-spring morning, Daffodils drooping with frost, buns pick and nibble.
Young grape plants look very small next to the trellises they will one day grow to fill. The poem below is about this.
--- Yearling grape trunks stretched, twined up taught to the trellis, towering above.
Poor finger! Chewed away cuticles sting when pressing into soil.
Two hundred onion seedlings flop and splay, a mop crowning the fresh bed.
I wrote the poem below after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
--- Country-wide, women bearing their wombs alone.
Spring—catching all six chicks one-by-one and porting them to their new home.
Rainy spring evening, toward our house, the slow skunk bears its shaggy stripes.
Aunt, uncle, nephew visiting on the old porch— oriole gazing.
Sweet potato plants are grown from slips, pictured above, which root in water before being planted in the soil.
--- Sweet potato root’s clean whiteness suddenly clung to by brown soil.
Unearthing old rocks, bed edge, with shovel and hoe— hot husband and wife.
Their centers still cool, the old edging rocks emerge into bright sunlight.
The crab apple blossoms only last a week or so and are sorely missed when they’re gone.
--- Yesterday pink rain of petals—today only green, only still leaves.