Lord help me, I’m writing poetry again. It’s a terrible year, and somehow verse feels like a proper response, a way to grapple with emotional turmoil with the most efficiency and directness. Today I’m thinking about haiku and giving myself the challenge to focus on the classical elements by including a reference to the natural world, an exploration of a specific, tactile moment, and a instant of quiet revelation.  Here’s today’s result, inspired by what I saw on my morning walk.

No hawk no, squirrel–
Just a bushy, severed tail
Curled in fresh cut grass.

How to remember what you already know about the things that matter

This poem
is a quiet room
and a mirror
and a simple word like “grief”
limned with gold thread, tied to a brick,
and thrown down a fairy tale well

you have to listen so hard
just to hear the echo

after all this drama
it must come back transformed
infused with new meaning
the poet only used a hundred words
he must have chosen them so carefully

but it’s just “grief”
only softer
and clearer