I wondered what it would be like to combine some of the haiku from my most previous post.  This happened:

Thoughts Walking
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Good morning snow drops hiding under the shade
of the Siberian cypress. May I join you?

Last of the snow, may I join you in melting?

Early frog, with the gold spot between your eyes,
teach me everything you know.

Two carp—one golden, one white, emerge from the murky darkness,
moving slow as afternoon dreams.

Welcome back heron who never left. Frost sliding from your hunched shoulders.

Dear lavender field on the neighboring hill. Are you wishing
for something? It’s best you don’t.

Twisted oak, growing through the cemetery fence,
my heart is tangled in fences too.

Walking still, I find a weather-washed deer skull. Its antlers
hold the sky.

There’s a man without a home, sitting against an old beech tree,
shaking off the world.

Fly! You’ve come early, rubbing your hands together.
What mischief are you planning?

Buttercups, washed in the sun, lining my path through the woods.

I know—big steps, little steps.
Just keep walking.

A Handful of Haiku

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

Some of these haiku have the wrong amount of syllables.  I don’t think Basho would mind.

after a spring rain
I toss worms back in the grass
worms with their five hearts

***

we share our stories
watching the bonfire rising
touching the dark sky

***

walking through the woods
I find a weather-washed deer skull
antlers holding the sky

***

the wind walks the change
under ochre-colored robe—
begging bowl empty

***

leaning on the oak
the old man shakes off the world
becomes the bright sky

***

the map’s rivers, roads—
age-lines tracing the world’s face—
so many ways home

***

dawn’s meditation—
a time-dented singing bowl—
trying to ring out

***

when sleep finds my eyes
owls drift from the night trees
asking who I am

***

walking by the farm
I hear the last cricket sing
near the closed barn door

***

good morning grand oak
you’ve twisted through the old fence
I twist through me own

***

shaving my glad breasts
making them smooth like fresh grapes
this is who I am

***

Hey gold and white carps!
What darkness have you come from
to swim into the light?

***

Welcome back heron
standing in the cold river
frost melting from your wings

***

Fly, you’ve come early
rubbing your hands together
who will you bug first?

Lines of Demarcation
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

The robins, squirrels,
the bees investigate the day—
morning’s prashad.

I wake disheveled, but ready
for the journeying. I am the one
who descends—a celestial time-

keeper–a one-person envoy—
sailing towards soundings and distances,
everything elaborating everything,

yet going unchanged. The lines
of demarcation were never real
to begin with.

It’s Time to Storm the Door
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

The ark teeters on the water-shedding mountain.
There’s a bitterness in the bones of the dead.
There are no longer roads. The ground,
undernourished for lack of sun and trees,
is putrid mud and marsh. Come on god—do you think
the drying world will be overrun by saints?
There are animals scratching to get out—bellies all agreed
a reckoning has arrived. It’s time to storm the door.

Saturday, March 16, 2024
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

This world of clay and wood
essentially turns unchanged.
Steered by an irreverent helmsman–
map spotty, and stained, everything
logged in with ink made from eggs.
The bag of unfavorable winds,
once sealed, spills across the sea.

I Call it Love
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Watch the stick of incense travel down—
following the burning, becoming
a cane of ash as it goes. In the vanishing,
does anything need to be named? If it does, all names
are one name, and you get to decide what it is.
This morning, I call it love, and all my thoughts
are one thought, and that too I call love,
and when I rise, my gait will have changed, and the ashes
blown away by the burning.

When Night Comes
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

When night comes, it doesn’t dismiss the day.
Instead, it takes it to the river, like
a raccoon carrying a cube of sugar
with its black, velvet hands, and dissolves
it in the passing water. And every time
it looks for the white granules gone—surprised,
but with the hopeful knowing more sweetness
will appear in its hands tomorrow.