tim's poetry workbook - 2. Haiku

These little tiny poems, haiku and tanka are my undoing i struggle with them very much. i read them by others and love them. Maybe they are just not my thing. The ones i read are beautiful and zen-like. Mine feel thick and brutish in comparison.

My world hasn't been and isn't one of pretty stacked rocks or pretty butterflies on slim stems. Mine is concrete and glass, wind and rain, traffic and honking horns...with a little green thrown in. And over the last two years they cut down many trees around here to get to the crumbling concrete to repair it .... They have, so far, left the ornamental olives alone. i like them with their narrow sage-like leaves, gnarly bark and branches... we have a park nearby which has a pond. Around the pond to keep it natural is a large wire fence, a blue heron visits there often... so here are my haiku, in no particular order.. from what i've seen in my world:

the bent olive tree
sheds its narrow sage-green leaves
so to sleep till spring

a lone blue heron
in the shallow water stands
hoping for hopping

baskets of flowers
bring glorious life to the
concrete and glass store

squirrels dodge and jump
over snow dotted branches
practicing for spring

hearing Spring’s warm call
snowdrops push through melting ice
in white battalions

the winds of fall blow
coldly pulling leaves from trees
leaving them for rakes