lost in the mists --
the towers suspending 
the Golden Gate Bridge

Posted on FaceBook's NaHaiWriMo page on 11/14/2012 in response to the prompt 'Landmarks'

I love the way the Golden Gate Bridge disappears into the fog.  Sometimes, as you approach the bridge, all you can see are the towers poking above the fog. And sometimes you appear to be heading into a tunnel with the Bay, the headland, and the towers all disappearing.

folding cranes

as many as it takes ...

sanity

Posted to Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 8/29/2012 in response to the prompt healthcare.

morning mist
an angler casts his line
iris bloom on the shore

laying out the paper
carefully tearing it to size
dreams of a great painting

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page, August 28, 2012, in response to the prompt wishes or dreams.

I'm not a fisherman, so I don't really know what they wish for.  But the ones I have talked with all say that catching fish is not what it is about.  It is about being on the river and engaged in the process, though I suppose that an exciting contest with their quarry would be welcome.  I do know about painting.  For me, preparing the paper is an important part of the process.  The whiteness of the paper, its texture and feel, interacting with it and tearing it carefully to the shape and size I want--those are all part of getting ready to paint.

summer
in an octopus's garden ...
a yellow submarine

Posted on FB's NaHaiWriMo page, August 27, 2012, in response to the prompt Beatles' songs.  A number of good haiku were posted in response to that prompt.  While I  like the Beatles' music, I don't know it well enough.  Some of the people posting clearly know all the songs and all the words.  Born later ...  :-)

aargh, time is running out
to write today's haiku ...
maybe tomorrow

Sometimes the words just won't come...

moon shadows
march across my ceiling ...
time takes its time

And sometimes sleep just won't come ...

Both posted on FB's NaHaiWriMo page, August 26, 2012, in response to the prompt, time.

ball tag on the dock
and in the water ...
thwak! Sandy's it!

Posted on FB's NaHaiWriMo page, August 25, 2012, in response to the prompt, summer childhood memories

We lived next door to a yacht club.  We weren't the yachting types;  we didn't own a yacht.  But they ran a sailing school each summer and my parents thought it a good idea to enroll my sister and me.  I guess the club thought it a good idea to let the neighbors join.  I spent my summers on the dock, in the water, and in small sail boats.  It was a wonderful way to grow up!

prosperity

until the seam runs out

families moving on

Posted on NaHaiWriMo page on 8/24/2012 in response to prompt seam.

time to surrender

to  doctors ...

chest pains

emergency room chatter

white coats come and go

ah, heated blankets

It was a false alarm, fortunately.  No problems were found, but an ambulance ride in the wee hours and 12 hours in the emergency room can't be counted as fun.

I have not posted the first haiku anywhere, but it was written in response to the prompt surrender.  The second one was posted today on the NaHaiWriMo page in response to the prompt heat.

sculpted by waves

polished by wind

art at my feet

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's Facebook page, 8/21/2012.  Prompt was driftwood.

a painted rock

a gift from a child

gone now

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's Facebook page, 8/22/2012.  
Prompt was forgotten things.  

Of course neither the child (my son--he's an adult now) nor the painted rock (a paper weight and a birthday gift) have been forgotten.  But the child is grown, and the paper weight must have been left behind sometime, for I can't find it.

thunk!
book drops ...
surrender to sleep

Posted to NaHaiWriMo on Facebook, 8/20/2012.  Prompt was surrender.  This one happens to me so often.  I blame the books.  ;-)

landing in fog

without instruments ...

a puffin

he'll dig a burrow

three feet deep ...

his nest

Posted to NaHaiWriMo on 8/18/2012.

The photo was taken in Newfoundland near Ferryland on July 21, 2012.  Puffins nest underground in deep burrows.  Both birds dig the burrow about three feet long using the claws on their feet.  The male prepares a nest, and the female lays one egg.

school bus
mission boat
log scaler ...
hauled up and rotting


For the Norbur Sea. She was our boat for several happy years on the B.C. coast. We sold her, very cheap, to a young couple we hoped would fix her up and keep her running. The last I saw of her was in a news photo illustrating the closure of the last Vancouver shipyard.

With a bow to Stan Rogers for the last line, which he wrote in his song "Make and Break Harbour":

"In Make and Break Harbour the boats are so few
Too many are hauled up and rotten.
Most houses stand empty old nets hung to dry
Are blown away lost and forgotten."
 

Posted to NaHaiWriMo 8/17/2012.  Prompt was boats.

fierce lion, movie star
roars at tourists now
at the zoo

Posted to NaHaiWriMo on 8/17/2012.  Prompt was lion. 

We, a group of lifelong learners, visited a wildlife park.  The resident male lion sauntered over, looked at us through the bars of his enclosure, roared several times, and then returned to his nap.  We were told that he had had a gig as the MGM lion for some years.

peck, rest
   peck, rest
the whole long day
the shell falls away
ah, freedom


beak open wide
squawking ...
the struggle begins

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's FB page, 8/16/2012.  Prompt was birth.  I wanted the first one to emphasize the hard work involved in birth.  In the case of a bird, it must break out of the shell by its own labour.

I also considered posting the following, but did not.  Maybe some other day:  "baby's first cry / his struggle begins"

sparrow searching
for food ... ah
chili peppers

Found this online: "Although many humans have trouble eating spicy peppers, birds can definitely take the heat. It seems that our avian friends lack the taste receptors that pick up on a pepper's stinging bite, which makes them a favorite of birds around the world. "

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's FB page, 8/15/2012.  Prompt was chili peppers.

Pooh and Piglet tracking
woozles ... they discover
the tracks are Pooh's

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's FB page, 8/14/2012.  Prompt was enlightenment.

midsummer's day
herring, aquavit, boiled potatoes ...
sunshine too

Posted on NaHaiWriMo FB page on 8/12/2012.  The prompt was holiday activities

• • Annie Juhl: "ohh that sounds like a good Scandinavian lunch ;-)"
  • 
    

    Robert Franson: "One of my very small efforts to connect with my roots. My paternal grandparents emigrated from the Motala area of Sweden in 1867 & 68 with their two year old daughter. Like so many immigrants they decided that, as Americans, they would not speak Swedish or talk of the old country. My father, the fifth and last child knew nothing of his heritage. I did manage, thanks to the Swedish Church Books, to find where they came from, who their parents were, and what other children they had. All of their siblings emigrated, leaving behind their parents. I thought that very sad."

    
    

‎ watermelon days
sound explodes overhead
Blue Angel flying low

Posted on NaHaiWriMo 8/11/2012.  The prompt was watermelon.  We were attending a picnic to send off new Cornell students, and the Blue Angels were performing.  I was watching the show out over Lake Washington when this one Blue Angel snuck up on us.  It crested the hill behind us, and the house, and then its sound exploded on our ears.  I reflexively ducked (as if that would make any difference).

the grass
is brown now ... still
noisy lawn mowers

It's fun to think of a small change: the grass is brown now ... / be still noisy lawn mowers.

It would be even better if they would stop!

 Posted on NaHaiWriMo's Facebook page, 8/9/2012.  The prompt was 'grass'.

tide pool ...
tiny fish, what will you do
when waves return

Originally posted on NaHaiWriMo Facebook page, 8/8/2012.  The prompt was tide pool.

one small rock
a windshield like a spider's web ...
visit to Fort St. John

Alaska Highway -- the ultimate road trip. Rocks thrown up by passing trucks are a hazard.  Originally posted on NaHaiWriMo's facebook page, 8/8/2012.  The prompt was 'spider', and for some reason it called to mind an incident on the Alaska Highway many years ago.  We were returning from a fantastic road trip and 'lost' our muffler outside of Fort St. John.  We tied it to the ski rack on the top of the car, in front of the two spare tires, and roared into town.  To me it looked like a moose head, which amuses me still.  We spent a delightful unplanned day in Fort St. John.

ah Orion ...
when you're here
I look in vain
for Scorpius

According to the versions of the myth which have him killed by Scorpius, the two were placed on the opposite sides of the sky from each other so that they are never visible at the same time. ... But I can never find the scorpion anyway. My mother always said that the tea pot pours hot water on the scorpion's tail. Still can't find it.

Posted on NaHaiWriMo's facebook page, 8/7/2012

he grabs his frisbee
runs to the car, looks back
tail wagging

Originally posted on the NaHaiWriMo page (FaceBook) 8/6/2012.  The prompt was hope.

limestone barrens

smll flowers bloom

amid the rocks

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 8/04/2012.  Prompt was karumi (lightness).

girl with lace and bows
how did you become
an avid gardener

She’s sitting on a window seat in front of a window dressed with lace curtains. She wears a large white bow in her hair and a white dress. There is lace on the sleeves below her elbows, and lace at the base of the dress. She has white stockings and black patent leather shoes. It’s a photo of my mother when she was about 10.

Mother was an avid gardener, and I asked her once when she was well into dementia, just to make conversation, why she liked gardening so. “Because I could get my hands dirty,” she said.

Posted on Facebook's NaHaiWriMo page on 3/01/2012.  Prompt was something old, in this case, the photograph.