Summer Haiku

photo by kapustin at imagesfrombulgaria.com
daisies drop their heads
I hop across the concrete
spraying cool rainbows

bee buzzes home
I sway in the hammock
going nowhere

between the rows of lettuces
plastic corn snakes wait

cracked earth at my feet
rushing streams of sweet pink juice
drip from my elbows

© 2012 Elizabeth Ehrenfest Steinglass, all rights reserved

My younger kids have been home this week, so I thought I’d return to haiku, imagining, foolishly, that they would take less time. Instead I’ve spent stolen hours on poems of just three (or two) lines, thinking about syllables, resonating images, verb tenses, personal pronouns, punctuation, nature, human nature, summer, and childhood. The more I read haiku and read about haiku the more I am awed by all they can do in just seventeen (or fewer) syllables. 

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8 replies
  1. Robyn Hood Black
    Robyn Hood Black says:

    You’re after my haiku heart today, Liz! Thanks for sharing these spritzes of summer. I really like “I sway in the hammock/going nowhere” and those plastic snakes at the ready in the garden….

  6. Liz Steinglass
    Liz Steinglass says:

    Thanks to all for stopping by and commenting. We’ve just had a raging summer storm–a part of summer I’ve neglected here but will try to put into words tomorrow.

  7. Heidi Mordhorst
    Heidi Mordhorst says:

    There is something singular about the grainy, sugary pink-transparent juice of watermelon running down your wrists and dripping off your elbows.

    See you Monday, perhaps with my own watermelon haiku (and no damn rubric).

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