haiku retrospective cclxxxvii

white picket fence
the plump smoothness
of the prickly pear

9 April 2003

Hee. I *knew* you were going to make this pedantic point, and I almost included an explanation with the haiku.

You do not disappoint.

Anyway, that "plump smoothness" is the whole haiku. It caught my eye and insisted that I write this haiku.

It's the end of the rainy season (or close to it; we have another storm coming this weekend). Like most succulents, the prickly pear inflates itself with water during the rainy season. In Arizona, overwatered saguaros sometimes explode like water balloons. During the dry season, the succulent uses the water, shrinking in the process. Many succulents have corrugated skin to accommodate this yearly expansion and contraction.

Anyway, this particular prickly pear (which has not flowered yet this spring, and so has no fruits) has stuffed itself so full of water that its spines have disappeared. The prickly pear is plump and smooth and succulent.

So, I like the image of the prickly pear so fat with water that its spines have disappeared. I also like the fact that the very plumpness of the prickly pear pinpoints the season.

The picket fence was serendipitous.

If the prickly pear should explode, I promise to write another haiku about it.

white picket fence
the prickly pear so fat
that it has no prickles

I like the first one better.

9 April 2003

haiku retrospective cclxxxvi

Is less always more?

In this case, what struck me was the blind hope and futility of dogwood flowers opening in the rain. Flowers don't open all at once. They take their time about it, and it's perfectly possible to drive by and catch them in the act. So perhaps this haiku needs more rather than less:

blind curve
dogwood flowers opening
in the rain


blind curve
dogwood flowers unfold
in the rain


blind curve
the creamy bracts of dogwood unfold
in the rain

(An attempt to be botanically precise here. Dogwood flowers are practically invisible. The "petals" that we admire are bracts, modified leaves that direct pollinators to the tiny flowers. Also, Easterners tend to think of dogwood flowers as pink. Our Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii) has large bracts the color and texture of whipped cream.)

Or perhaps Tim is right and my attachment to the word "open" is a drag on the haiku.

blind curve
dogwood flowers
in the rain

I think I write a variation on this haiku every year. I love Pacific dogwood, and they are rare around here. There are only three trees on my regular routes. Two of them are located on the inside of a blind curve, where the road demands so much of my attention.

blind curve
dogwood flowers unfold
in the rain

7 April 2003

haiku retrospective cclxxxv

mirror lake
their fists destroy my reflections


republican guard
steel-toed boots trample my dreams


4 April 2003