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.

the football stands filled
for a high school graduation
on the nightly news
Sandusky wears a suit and tie
instead of a prison jumpsuit

This started out as a tanka and became a cinquain, a related form.

monarch

trains heading south

into the trackless air

dew on the engines that push them

onward

in an untelevised
feat of winter olympics
the gray squirrel's
split-second run
into a back flip