Three hens huddle
underneath the dripping roost—
stones in a puddle.
***
The Poetic Asides prompt for April 26 was “water.” It’s been a busy few days, so I will be in catch up mode the rest of NaPoWriMo. And, you know, when in doubt, write a chicken haiku…
I ask the barista engineering the production of my chai
whether rain increases or decreases the flow of customers.
It alternates, she says. When it’s cold, rain amps things up.
When it’s warm, it’s already slow; with rain it fizzles out.
The coffee shop is crackling today—energy contained
within the walls, unwilling to leave the insulated space,
afraid of the potential shock. Will that be cash or charge?
***
Yesterday’s prompt from Poetic Asides was to write a weather poem.
My car has a yellow sheen of pollen
requiring the use of windshield wipers
or the brush on the back of the ice scraper
to drive safely.
We’re only on Day 2.
Eventually the pollen will drift like snow,
and when the savior rain comes it will
carry the offending grains down the driveway or
into the gutter, swirling like all the stars in the Milky Way.
Until then, let the suffering begin.
Pollen on the windshield – You can see where I used the wipers–and that the pollen has start accumulating again…
***
Using a combination of prompts: “rain” from Adele Kenney and “suffering” from Robert Lee Brewer. Come to think of it “un-love” from NaPoWriMo applies too…I SO un-love spring allergies…
The rain was dancing
the day my sister came home;
Grandma held me back.
***
Haiku Heights is hosting The September Heights, a haiku-a-day challenge with a daily word prompt to be used as a theme and/or in the haiku. Today’s prompt is “birth.” Click through to check out more haiku or to add your own.
Aridity makes
the various Wests one: no
rain follows the plow.
***
I don’t usually like to explain my poetry (I hope it speaks for itself, but nobody got the agile joke, so maybe not!). In this case I think I have to make an exception.
When I read the prompt “rain,” my mind immediately went to Wallace Stegner’s book The American West as Living Space. In it Stegner describes several US western regions, but ties them together as one “American West” with his statements “The West is defined…by inadequate rainfall” and “Aridity, and aridity alone, makes the various Wests one.” (Incidentally, if you haven’t read Stegner, check out his novels Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose. Not always easy reads, but well worth the effort.)
The last line is a reference to 19th-century Cyrus Thomas‘ debunked theory that if you plow the fields, the rain will increase (Field of Dreams, anyone?).
So, the words are not my own, just the concatenation.
***
Haiku Heights is hosting The September Heights, a haiku-a-day challenge with a daily word prompt to be used as a theme and/or in the haiku. Today’s prompt is “rain.” Click through to check out more haiku or to add your own.
Your touch, your kiss, your glance
is electric. Shock me again.
Sockfeet shuffling on carpet.
Electrical outlet, electrical cord.
Benjamin Franklin flying a kite.
Electrical storm, huddled in bed ignoring
blue flashes that pierce my eyelids.
Electric hairdryer and curling iron.
The things we do to be beautiful.
What is beautiful? And why?
Why is beautiful?
Why is beautiful.
Electric fences to keep us in,
to keep them out. When the power’s out,
escalators are staircases, elevators, still boxes.
Electricity travels from your skin to mine.
I see it. I see your mind
churning ideas, churning out thoughts.
Lightning blazes, thunder explodes.
Thor throws his hammer that cannot miss.
Sif sits at his side, wondering
if all this is really necessary.
Couldn’t a gentle rain do the same thing?
But she has never been a mortal
coupled with another mortal
waiting out the gods’ wrath
and holding on for dear life.
***
We are having a lovely thunderstorm, so this poem seemed appropriate.
The summer of hot rain
ran May to September.
After undue autumn showers,
ample winter snow, and
persistent spring storms,
we nearly drowned in July.
The river quivered, surface
tension pushed to its limit,
meniscus ready to burst…
then the torrent…
crossing roads, filling gullies and ditches,
rising to the water works.
Contamination
despite the sandbags and levees.
Skeleton crews staffed airless
downtown offices, queued for
port-a-potties on the streets.
The true beginning of
business casual.
The sporadic stream
at the bottom of our yard
never dried up. Dogs
tracked in mud
hourly.
Stuck inside, no summer in sight.
We craved sunshine.
We craved vitamin D.
We craved vitamin F (friends)
and C (cookouts)
and L (laughter).
We craved the nutrients we lacked.
Karin S. Wiberg 