Helen Ruggieri
I have a 25 mile commute to work and along that stretch of road the landscape floats by. I know the touch of seasons on the fields and ponds, the way snow skitters across the concrete in a wind off the lake. To capture this movement I make a haiku, a 17 syllable Japanese poem about nature. The road is littered with old haiku, bad haiku, and some good ones. The haiku takes the moving landscape and stills it. yellow leaf/traces the shadow/of the wind
__________________________________________
Four Haiku
as if I rapped
my elbow on the doorjamb --
without you
my mother's face
in the mirror moves
with mine
rabbit tracks
across the snowy field -
the long commute
thin red line
in the yellow yolk --
over easy
_________________
Helen Ruggieri has had poems recently in Apocalypse, Riverwind, del sol review, and in the best of the decade issue of Hawaii Pacific Review. Ruggieri's haiku have won prizes at the Kusamakura International Haiku Competition and the Suruga Baika Literary Festival, both in Japan. Her latest collection is Glimmer Girls (Mayapple Press).