Daily Haiku

 

chirp ... chirp ... chirp
the song of the
dying smoke alarm

Iceland, Day 1, Slide 1

Iceland.  Where to begin?  Maybe the best place is with the little car that took us on our 1638 mile road trip around the island, and with a pleasant picture of some of the country side.  The car is the little blue one in this photo,  a Hyundai I30 -- serviceable and economic, but there were some gravel roads where I would have preferred a 4x4.  The photo is of a farm and waterfall along the south coast of the island. 

All along the south are cliffs from a former coastline, like the ones shown here.  The flat lands below the cliffs are good farming country, and all along the cliffs are waterfalls like the one shown here.  There are thousands of waterfalls in Iceland, so a photo with a waterfall seemed like a good place to start.  And sheep!  450,000 of them (the human population is about 300,000).   "The modern Icelandic Sheep is a direct descendant of the sheep brought to the island by the early Viking settlers, in the ninth and tenth century. ...  Genetically the Icelandic sheep is the same today as it was 1100 years ago. It is possibly the oldest and purest domesticated breed of sheep in the world today." [See http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/icelandic/]

rain

summer winds
the golden hills
wait for rain

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 7/02/2013.  Prompt was 'rain'.

Canada Day 2013

neighbors

without a wall

Canada Day

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 7/01/2013.  Prompt was 'wall'

shooting the rapids
of the Buckinghorse River~
crazy spaniel!

We were driving the Alaska Highway with our springer spaniel, Buddy. We camped one evening by the Buckinghorse River (an apt name) in northern British Columbia. Buddy wandered away from the camp. The next we saw of him was his head bobbing down through the rapids. We yelled and waved to no avail. A ways downstream he hauled himself out, came back to camp, shook himself vigorously, and then ran off up stream to do it again!

faded and well-worn
a gentleman's raincoat
yet ... the scent of lilac

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 5/15/2013.  Prompt was odour.

hot and dry

from the palm a towhee scolds ~

empty bird bath

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 5/14/2013.  Prompt was necessities.

lingering cold ~
the neighbor's cat
lounges in the sun

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 2/10/2013. Prompt was garden.

 

Baia di Napoli
autumn sunset, wine ~
Torna a Sorrento

 

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 3/30/2012.  Prompt was romantic trip.

the cod are gone ...
long ago, young folk
moved to the city

The photograph in this haiga was taken in Red Cliffe, Newfoundland & Labrador, on June 21, 2012.  The  haiku is based, in part, on the song "Make and Break Harbour" by Stan Rogers and is intended as an homage to Mr. Rogers, to Newfoundland's outports, and to the people who lived in the outports.  

Here are some of the lines of Mr. Rogers' song:  "And the young folk don't stay with the fisherman's ways / Long ago they all moved to the cities." And the chorus: "In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few / Too many are holed up and rotten. / Most houses stand empty old nets hung to dry / Are blown away lost and forgotten." Stan Rogers can be heard singing it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E2DFa18kYI

spilling over the wall

Jupiter's beard ...

ivory, mauve & magenta

Here is a revision suggested by the prompt echo, which was posted for Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page for 5/05/2013.  It is a bit long, but I like the repetition suggested by the word echo and the flowing quality suggested by cascades.  In fact, those qualities attracted me to the scene.

cascades of Jupiter's beard

echo down the wall ~

ivory, mauve & magenta

slow going on
the Garibaldi trail ~
blueberry bushes

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 5/02/2013.  Prompt was blue.

hitting the haiku wall
time for ... chocolate

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 5/01/2013.  Prompt was asperity.

Kristian's rifle

a gift when he was four

kept in the corner

loaded

the Crickett

a little gun for a little boy

Kristian's first gun

Kristian had a sister

Caroline

she was two

when he shot her

dead

 

 

dragonflies graze
the pond's surface
shadows lengthen

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 2/27/2012.  The prompt was to start with an automatically generated haiku.  Here is what the machine gave me:

dragonflies graze, flames
dreaming, dumbly, final lamp
embracing shadows
 

shocks of yellow
in the greening hills ~
Oregon grape

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/28/2013.  Off-prompt.

a plain black creamer
maybe Grandmother's
Mother kept it ... I shall too

 

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/27/2013.  Prompt was
totem / icon / symbol.

tide rushes into the inlet --
under the bridge ... blue crabs

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/26/2013.  Prompt was roots.

 

bird bath filled ~

sparrows set aside

their squabbles

 

Revised from a haiku originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/25/2013.  Prompt was garden.

 

a simple painting done ~
shall it moulder in a drawer?
or grace a wall?

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/23/2013.  Prompt was visual arts.

old ears and road noise ~
even the granddaughter
can't get through

beautiful -
treacherous -
mushrooms

hunger moon
a dumpster diver
works the alley
   
Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/18/2013.  Prompt was alley.

drifting in a fjord
a boater plays the recorder
for harbour seals

The place was Princess Louisa Inlet, a beautiful fjord that cuts deeply into the coastal mountains of British Columbia.

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/20/2013.  The prompt was music/musical instrument.]

 

forty two --

not just any number on

any old baseball jersey

 

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/21/2013.  Prompt was clothing.

north coast spring ~
every hue of green
on the color wheel

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/22/2013 (Earth Day).  Prompt was wheel.

the halls were dark

the ceilings collapsed --

still, volunteers went in

 

A nursing home, West, Texas, after an explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. 4/17/2013.

 

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page.  Prompt was dark/darkness.

 

 

even thinking of wildflowers
fails to ease the pain --
Boston Marathon 2013

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/16/2013.  Prompt was wildflower/weed.

blue iris
and red rock grotto ~
our guide sings
of Tickle Cove Pond

Tickle Cove is a place on the island of Newfoundland. A 'tickle', in the local dialect, is a narrow passage of water. A 'pond' can be a large lake. The song is about a Newfoundlander who was hauling wood with his mare, Kit, late in the season and decided to a shortcut across the frozen pond. Our guide sang unaccompanied by the grotto; she had a beautiful voice.
 

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/14/2013.  Prompt was pond.

You can listen to one version of Tickle Cove Pond here.   Sadly, it is not our guide singing.

Our guide's blog, Adventures on the Eastern Edge, is well worth a visit for views and stories of the Canadian maritime provinces.  

at the aquarium
the sharks swim behind glass ~
still they scare my granddaughter

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/11/2013.  Prompt was underwater.

 

On the other hand, the sharks thrilled my grandson.  What is it about sharks?

 

 

our grandkids
running ahead at the zoo ...
a small penguin says
WHOAA!

Originally posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/10/2013.  Prompt was zoo.  

celestial light
makes the granite glow --
El Capitan

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/04/2013. Prompts were celestial and a special place.

behind the falls 

emerald green and cool 

a hidden world

First posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/09/2012.  Prompt was springs, fountains, waterfalls, rivers, floods, seas.

 

kites soaring 

an old man remembers 

a child dreams

          ~

kites soaring

an old man remembers 

a child’s dream

 

First posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/05/2012.  Prompt was balloons, bubbles, kite, pinwheels.

 

grey dawn ~
the din of snow geese
on their way

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/03/2013.  Prompt was delta.

 

sparrows fly to where
an oak once stood ...
flutter, fly away

two venerable live oaks
they've seen it all ~
sound of chain saws

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/02/2013.  Prompt was empty.

smooth as glass our ocean surfers bobbing up and down

 

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 4/01/2013.  Prompt was smooth.