September

• 

Track rises
between small fields where grass grows
splashed with colour

• 

Hot and dull the fields, full of origano and dense with trees in the folds where streams run. A patchwork of cultivation and places never worked at all. Birds pipe and the silvery sound of running water, deep and green despite the drought. There was a storm in the night, brief and noisy, half-filled the water butts and freshened up the frogs

• 

greenfinch pipes
a complaint for the lost year
the empty nest

• 

a lament for the cooling nights, the days shortening, this year’s young raised, and who knows if there will be a next year?
At the end of this lane there are only a cart tracks crossing country, meandering along the edges of fields, following the contours of the hills. Winding and empty, and I wonder how long it can last.

• 

Vent d’autan
in the maïs—parchment
rattling wordless songs.

• 

Unexpected summer

We had no internet for a couple of days, got a lot of revision done. It’s just back and so is summer. 24°C yesterday 34°C today.

• 

I have missed the damselflies, their gem-stone glow among the tree shadows along the stream, the sapphire and emerald, turquoise and garnet against the slow dark water. When the sky has been a stormy sea and the meadows an ocean of waving waterweed, I have missed the light.

Now the sun clouds have broken, tame as sheep and horses, and nothing trammels the summer sun, insect-light fill the shade. And in the sun among mauve banks of mint and pennyroyal, teasel and thistle, the flutter of butterfly wings, every shade of russet orange splashed with white and streaked with black, is so dense, their silence seems impossible.

The air moves and the poplars sigh like the sea, foaming on the strand, breathing butterfly and dragonfly so loud I can scarce hear the gentle piping of the birds. Later weighed down by the growing heat, the breeze dies and even the poplars fall silent.

From cold clear night of crystal stars, the day rises to a crescendo of heat, and the meadow combusts in butterfly wings.

By the house, flowers hang limp. A dragonfly zips and whirrs like a clockwork toy.

this world rolls skyward
evening clouds dove-grey— a
new moon sets in gold

Haiku for a day the sun was supposed to shine but didn’t

no sound
but the flapping of crow wings
and wet washing

Best wishes

Tis the season, so here’s a festive decoration from outside the barn door

and one from inside the barn door in the kitchen

 

House hunkers down. The folk that pad and trot around its walls the night have gone. Only the birds, ever-hungry, ever-cheerful chatter, fluttering from tree to tree and into the porch after seed and other necessities. A deer family ambles through the willows by the stream. Dawn sun streams gold, a glimpse of heaven before its flow slows and ceases. Cloud thickens.

days slip deeper
into the heart of the cold
east wind sighs winter

Haiku for a noisy evening

the night vixen’s shriek
drowned in the rising swell
of crane voices

haiku for winter sleep

This photograph by an unnamed photographer of a ladybird in the ash of Mount Etna seems appropriate

Heavy heart and
head yet the house fills
with ladybirds

Haiku for geese and falling leaves

For Frank Tassone’s haikai challenge. Two haiku as there are two themes proposed.

I see no geese
winging south—the north wind
is empty

rain the red leaves
puddles of dying flame
summer ashes

Haiku for a south wind

poplars sway
tall ships tossed on wind waves
far from the sea

wave of heat
the swell rocks the roses
becalmed

clatter of acorns
autumn hail bounces in oak
shade—dry pattering

Yellow haiku

The flower I had in mind was fleabane, (see image). Tansy sounds more poetic, but the colour is a slightly more acid yellow.

Photo ©Phil Sellens

the slow light is long
low spreading the rich yellow
of tansy flowers

Haiku sequence: Birds in a hot sky

A haiku (hopefully) sequence for the dverse prompt

 

blue

bold as brass echoes

with summer

 

swallows at sunset

flicker in elegant flight

winged evening dress

 

heat throbs

woodpecker-laughs while we bake

with tree envy

 

still hushed air

grasped in an iron fist

hot as a cat’s breath

 

too hot to sing

sparrowhawk ever ready

to pick a fight