Tag: clouds

thunder

and katydids—
tonight’s soup

From photo to haiku draft to Instagram post in the course of an hour, sitting out on the porch sans internet except for my phone. My first go at a haiku was wordier, and I liked it almost as much:

a growl of thunder…
katydids go on playing
their self-instruments

By sheer coincidence, this fits the 5-7-5 syllable pattern that defines English-language haiku in the popular imagination. I believe the draft I went with is much more in the mainstream haiku tradition of preserving openness to multiple interpretations. But the earlier effort is suggestive, too, just on a more metaphorical plane.

daybreak

view of a sunrise in the Appalachian mountains

in January
only crows crow

Back with the crows again. I have noticed though that nearly every morning, crows seem to wake up almost exactly at sunrise, even when it’s cloudy.

Initially I had “January daybreak only the crows crow” but that put the semantic break too close to the center, and I do prefer the asymmetry of classic haiku. I might be overthinking it, though.