When Mary Lee Hahn invited us all to join her in writing a daily haiku during the month of December, I wasn’t sure I had the energy. The past year has been challenging in so many ways and I have often found it difficult to put my worries and frustrations aside and just write. But, like Mary Lee, I needed to find a way to “focus on moments and slows me down to a more livable pace.”
Writing a haiku each day has helped me shift into low gear and find the poetry in what Natalie Babbitt calls “those commonplace marvels which [the world] spreads so carelessly before us everyday.” For me, many of these marvels have arrived on the wings of birds, so it seems appropriate to end the year with a mini-collection of haiku inspired by my feathered friends.

a quartet of crows:
onyx adornments in oak’s
leafless crown
tracks in fresh snow:
thank you notes
from the birds
withered brown apple
summer’s forgotten bounty
blue jay’s surprise treat
like an eagle’s tail
plumes of white clouds fan out
over distant hills
© Catherine Flynn, 2017
Wishing you all a joyous holiday season. I’m looking forward to seeing you all in 2018! Please be sure to visit Buffy Silverman at Buffy’s Blog for the Poetry Friday Roundup.