HAIKU for the SEASONS

 

Feathery forest

Frost ices stripped tree branches

Wind-frozen winter

 

Birds with cozy nests

Close-around-them softly lined

Small homes just enough

 

Lazy days’ hot sun

Floppy hats and sunglasses

Bring me a cold drink

 

 

Red, brown, and yellow

An autumn leaf tumbles down

Drifting on a breath

Interlude  

“It’s green, just green,” she states tersely

impatient with desire to move on

 

to something else besides sitting

but I simply smile, ignoring her

 

reclining in near silence on our old camp blanket

finishing up the last crumbs of a late spring picnic

 

next to the jade green river bubbletrickling

miniature whitecaps ruffling and bumping

 

over uneven but smoothed rocks slick with algae

olive green and stringy, clinging like wet hair

 

as sunlight sparkles off the bottle green waves

dappling the meadow around us and birds hopflit

 

from one patch of shadow to another

winging up to basketweave branches

 

topping tree trunks greening with brown-edged moss

velvety bumps trailing from fairy beds hidden

 

in tufts of wild grasses, limegreen fading to pale

sprouting rakishly around tree trunks

 

through cracks in rock canyon walls rough with graygreen lichen

spreading like fingers of a gnarled old man

 

reaching for the crinkled blossoms clustered on

thin branches laced with flat kelly green leaves and

 

silver strands of a spider’s web shimmering against

dark green stalks and black thorns of a wild rose bush.

 

I break off a tightly formed bud hiding furled petals,

carefully place it in her hair and kiss her cheek