3 Haikus || An Oblation of Things

Beneath the red eaves
a spider’s-web sail unfurls
leeward, boughs bending

Moss shimmers silver
old Sol sets in the branches’
autumn silhouette

I lie under leaves
the sanctuary above
earthen priest below

Sanctuary

I drove to the border of cloud and watched ghosts dance about its edge like waves on the sand. From here I can see the land bathed in thunderous sunlight; even from the shadows I can see that the world is filled with such beauty. There is a gossamer veil of mist, impermeable and unforgiving, that separates our world from theirs. Toeing the end of shadow, I can sometimes make out the holes in the sky where what lies behind pierces through – stars. I’ve tried to paint them, but white is hard to come by in this land between the highways.

(From the base of the clouds where the ghosts spy, we are probably only a contour cutting its way through mountainside and ocean shore, unalarmed and indiscriminating.) I asked the ghosts where white tones are found, and they indicated the cemetery. But, as I said, that veil is impenetrable; thus I stand in a meadow drenched in hues of grey so that the highway is indistinguishable from the patch of Queen Anne’s Lace to my right. I stand looking into a sun meant for a painter of white. I stand looking into a sun that whispers lines I don’t understand.

Beneath Birch Saplings

Blinded as we pull back the curtains.

A sigh from the sill

as we lift the window, caressed

by a breath of outside.

 

The smell of newborn blooms

mingling with the rust

of the screened-in porch.

Warmth.

 

Sight returns. Sunshine.

The floor is agape with it,

the waves of it lapping

against our ankles

while the daffodils on the sill

twist their roots in ecstasy.

 

We lay on the floor,

and grass sprouts

between the tiles,

cracking the boards.

 

We run our fingers through,

and through the blades

as if they were the hair of a lover;

We bury our faces in the scent of it.