It’s Earth Day and the Lansing Poetry Club is also sponsoring a reading today called Poem in Your Pocket — it seems like a perfect day to share some haiku. I’ll be reading the following poems at today’s reading. They are taken from Bob Rentschler’s book of haiku called Michigan: Four Seasons. The first three are from the Winter section of the book (though I’ve experienced them this spring) and the last four are from the Spring section. I feel Bob’s presence in each carefully chosen word.
And I apologize to Bob for edublogs’ lack of proper form; Bob wanted an indent at each new line which I can’t seem to make happen in this format (I’ve added a couple dashes, too, due to formating issues).

– – – – –

Overnight snowfall
clean white sheets for a new day
until noon — that’s all.

Cardinal unseen
fir tree whistler — there he is
red on white on green.

Fire in the sky
sun’s inferno smothered with
gray clouds floating by.

Spring celebrated
bees in the blooming plum tree
inebriated.

Twenty after five
cardinal cacaphony
morning comes alive.

Listen to the train
crying in the lonely night
seasonless refrain.

Hunching his behind
caterpillar on my page
leaves tracks on my mind.