100 haiku challenge - 19

I pulled up the blinds
and we shared a gray moment,
remembrance of peace.

Today it rained, as it has for a few days, as it will for a few days more. From my work station, I could feel the world grow grayer and hear thunder in the quiet of the afternoon. Most colleagues had gone home; those that remained were tired and slightly under different weather. My cubical mate exclaimed in gentle joyful sounds when I lifted the blind on the window behind us. We spoke of wet bark and the release of a rain storm and the moments of quiet and rest in days like this. Softness finding softness at the dripping root of things.

100 haiku challenge - 18

I saw daffodils.
Short and green and blooming
bunched yellow petals. 

100 haiku challenge - 17

Reading at the bar
on a damp night before spring.
Nowhere else to be.

I am reading the unread books on my fiction shelves. There were 17 at the beginning of the year. I read 1 and bought a new book, so there are 17 books to read. I won't rate them or review them, no matter how much I think I want to. Years of reading for sales and elevator pitches left some residue that I'm cleaning up with the work of letting go. But it was fun to read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino last night over a beer and a burger. Fun to be silent with my elbows on the bar. Fun to let it wash over me with no expectation. 

There is a little bit of a poem in the moments of music and solitude in public. Sometimes it is a lived poem, sometimes it is written. We shall see about this one.

100 haiku challenge - 16

Slightly cold all day.
Even sunshine through windows
could not thaw me out. 

Look at that - feeling better enough to use all their words instead of a contraction!

Yay!

Except that, yeah, having a cold and feeling cold are not great for not having a cold anymore. Sending everyone the strong reminder that no matter how amazing the poetry reading is, or how excited you are to be in the space - remember to pack a mask for yourself and maybe a friend, and then wear them, because humans are disgusting and being ill is the actual worst.

100 haiku challenge - 15

Rain drops on my walk.
Just small splashes on my head
that dried right away. 

we are already at the point in the exercise where i am actively wondering what is concrete and what is figurative. i questioned using the word 'splashes' because it felt so evocative. my face was still swimming in goo that may have had something to do with it. the word 'just' in this also feels too distant from something lived. interesting.

100 haiku challenge - 14

Laid out by a cold,
whining and stuffed and tired.
It's rough being sick. 

okay, so contractions are not strictly acceptable in the form of haiku. i get this and appreciate it. also my face was filled with ick when I wrote this and I am keeping it the way that it is to honor that experience and the fact that I wrote something on the day.

100 haiku challenge - 13

I love this music.
Road work season has begun
uneven pavement.