Dust Bathing

Leaf 397 – Looking Back

 

Tatsufumi Kobayashi - Passeri

When I was a child, we had an old, neglected strawberry patch beneath two very tall conifer trees in our back garden. It was mainly used by the sparrows in the summer, and I remember I always liked to see the little hollows which they created in the hard-baked earth.

 

 

Sparrows

dust bathing

in the old strawberry patch.

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'berry' & 'sparrow.'

Ripples

Leaf 396 – Reflections

 

Robin Maria Pedrero - Cattails And Dragonflies

I have always been fascinated by dragonflies …

 

 

Ripples on water –

two dragonflies

waltzing with the wind.

 

 

 

Sound of Leaves

Leaf 395 – Looking Back

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Miyajima in the Rain (c.1930s)

This poem recalls a visit to Miyajima, on a wet and misty, windless day in February 2024. See also, Leaf 312.

 

 

Sound of leaves

slow pattering

precipitation.

 

 

 

Her Mirror

Leaf 394 – Reflections

 

Bert Stern - Marilyn Monroe with a Nikon Camera (1962)

I’ve tried to place this poem in several different haiku magazines, but it’s always been rejected. I wonder if the reason for this is because it reads differently to others to how I imagine it? – In my mind’s eye it is very much linked to the poem I posted in Leaf 278, with echoes of Gloria Swanson saying “We had faces!” in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950).

 

 

Polishing

the tarnished silver

of her mirror.

 

 

Empty Road

Leaf 393 – Reflections

 

Janet Brooke - Canary Wharf from Under the Flyover

Many of my fondest memories of travel are the starts from home amid the optimism of early morning.

 

 

White mist – 

a golden sun rising

over the empty road.

 

 

Out of this World

Leaf 392 – Reflections

 

Fortunino Matania - The Moon Viewed from Space
(Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Pirates of Venus, c.1932)

This poem was inspired by a love of classic sci-fi …

 

 

Sat reading

on her bunk –

out of this world.

 

 

 

Cool Spoons

Leaf 391 – Looking Back

 

Looking back on life, I sometimes find a strange sort of contentment in not knowing …

 

 

COOL SPOONS

 

A few photographs and old postcards –

two cigarettes, smouldering 

memories of younger days:

 

Kettle clicks –

tinkling two mugs

in the kitchen.

 

Tight-laced lovers laugh together –

drinking tea, eating biscuits,

in bed.

 

My shabby old flat

on the High Street –

long since flattened and gone.

 

Half-a-lifetime:

the mystery

of who you were,

and,

who you went on to be?

 

 

Photograph Credit: IMDb