no matter how much it hurt

she felt disconnected 

from the lost clumps of hair

the same way she tried to disconnect

from being raped again

muted tv

the silent bats 

of baseball players

we miss hearing dad

call the strike zone

not what I 
was expecting
at the edge of a cornfield
a deer bedded down
for the night

such big returns
on a small investment
the roadside stock
of purple and white
irises

Today is the 17th anniversary of my mom's death. Today Nate graduates from college.

the flowered cat
in its new home
her eyes catch
the same sunlight
you had while you were painting

We miss you.

breast cancer
in remission
a friend's path
bordered by a multitude
of pink azaleas

somewhere in 
the worn-out elbows
of a mother's jacket
all the hours she spent
lifting up others

it starts with
the cicada
a summer's morning
the pulse of feverish clicks
before slowing down

yellow trash bags
along a stretch 
of adopted highway
the sharpness of a crow's beak
ripping through the plastic

This is not what I would consider a haiku or tanka but influenced by the haiku form. These will be short verses which I will post periodically. This one is dedicated to Hurricane Isaac which reached the Saint Louis area in the form of rain. By the time Isaac got here, it was a tropical depression. The gray skies made me think of the components of depression.

End of the Drought

sorrow returns

in a cold, gray rain

from an anonymous cloud

__________________________

The onset of depression can come without any warning and sometimes without the person’s being aware of what caused it. For me, the “anonymous” becomes a pivotal part of depression’s sequence—that of feeling blue but not being able to pinpoint why.