Haiku Sticky #513

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

ripening peaches
each August outsmarted
by the wild ones

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

basic design
elements learned
unexpectedly

Poetry Friday--In Memory of Lee Bennett Hopkins

I decided to step away from my Poetry Friday hiatus to participate in a celebration to honor children's poetry champion, Lee Bennett Hopkins. Lee died on August 8, 2019.

I have used a line from his poem, "City," which is found in City I Love (Abrams, 2009):

A hydrant is my swimming pool.

It is the inspiration for a cherita and I've altered a photo by John Vachon, taken in 1941, to illustrate it.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

a hydrant is my swimming pool

a respite from city heat
mere minutes in the moment

laughter of friends the memento
--a valve waiting to be reopened
at a moment's notice

I never had the opportunity to meet Lee in person, but I did participate in a Highlights Foundation workshop back in 2017 in which he video conferenced with the attendees. I corresponded with him briefly about a poem being considered for a future anthology. Sadly, the project was subsequently canceled by the publisher and I wasn't able to brag, "I'm in a Lee Bennett Hopkins anthology!"

Find more tribute poems at The Poem Farm where Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is hosting today's special celebration #DearOneLBH. Many thanks to Jone MacCulloch for originally suggesting we share LBH's poems by using them as a springboard to something new.

Haiku Sticky #512

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

clap of thunder
the walk home darker
with each raindrop

Happy Haiga Day!

Haiku © Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Photo © Andrea Murphy, used and altered with permission.

Text:

the resident cat
totally unreadable
...visiting dog

Haiku Sticky #511

Only the second week of August and already change is upon us.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

first turning leaf
first vee of geese
first fall funk

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. "Camellia and Bird" print by Hiroshige Andō.

Text:

upside down

we're still capable
of hearing the music

have we become
too reliant on our vision
to decipher the words?

Haiku Sticky #510

This past weekend, with two mass shootings within 24 hours, most people were shook to their cores. Still there are those who refuse to accept responsibility for their words. There are also those who say talking about gun control at such a time of grief is merely political opportunism. However, with more mass shootings in 2019, than the number of days expired thus far, when is there a time when someone affected by gun violence is not grieving?

On Facebook, many shared a poem, from three years ago, written by Brian Bilston, "America is a Gun." Read it here, if you somehow missed it.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

the gun defines us
will our hearts, too,
turn to steel

Happy Haiga Day!

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Image courtesy NYPL Digital Collections.

Text:

on the cusp of summer

reacquainted with
voices of neighbors
through open windows

congeniality lasting
until the first heat wave