Renascence

By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA

No cougars are supposed to roam the Appalachian mountains.  They’re supposed to be extinct here, killed off or driven out by logging half a century ago.  And yet . . . here and there a single footprint lingers in damp earth, a wisp of hair clings to rusted wire, a blurred snapshot betrays the image of a ghost-cat slipping through shadows.

And once, echoing down the mountainside where I stumbled mile after mile over rain-slicked rocks in gathering dusk—once, a long, unearthly scream to pierce the heart. 

I utter a prayer 
into the darkness
that enfolds me—
may all the vanished ones return 
when at long last we’re gone

The Spinning Wheel

By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA

milkweed blooms
at the meadow’s edge
she waits
for the monarch’s blessing
under a shattered sky

one strand snaps
and the tapestry ravels—
at dusk
a mockingbird sings
the old crone’s song

soft rain falling
through a starless night
she weaves
its many-colored threads
into a shroud for the earth

~Stacking Stones Anthology, summer 2018

Evensong

By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA

butterflies flutter
from the artist’s brush
in memoriam—
a river of monarchs
once flowed across the sky

slow spirals
up the summer sky—
scavengers
cleansing my mind
of its dark residue

I follow a path
of spindrift oak leaves
to a clearing
where no cabin ever stood—
its hidden hearth my home

the day
closes its circle
around me
silver voices
re-enchant the dusk

to keep at bay
the wolfish dreams,
I sleep
with gentle sorrow
cradled in my arms

~red lights 15:2, June, 2019

Out of Season

By Doug Sylver
Seattle, Washington, USA

Not that it wasn’t appreciated
however unexpected
Not that it wasn’t beautiful
however out of place
Not that it wasn’t surprising
however disturbing

A cherry tree
blossoming full
pink fireworks
but in December
not even winter yet
let alone spring
another palindromic day
12/11/21
 
Haiku-worthy
cliché as it is
but Basho is walking
uphill 
while me down
and he’s taking notes 
on his cell phone
noticing the colors
nodding to them
in their sparseness
noticing my noticing
nodding to me
in my sparseness
and this far north
next door to Canada
a stone’s throw from Alaska
tanka-worthy maybe but
I haven’t counted yet 
I haven’t even written yet
 
You say I am keen today and
since the wind is south by southwest
I know a hawk from a haiku
and a handshake from a handsaw
you should see me on the
other days
and in the
other winds
then you’d agree 
perchance that
beauty happens even
when unexpected
then you’d agree 
perchance that
when everything
and everyone
should be gone
there’s always hope
for disturbing surprises
even then
and especially when
they’re out of season.

The garden in November

By Doug Sylver
Seattle, Washington, USA

Preparing it for sleep
with maple leaves in various stages of decay
a foot thick between soil so cold
and warming burlap bag blankets
with names of coffee companies 
from around the world
Cafe Viejo from El Salvador
Cafe Verde from Ecuador
Cafe Nuyorican from Puerto Rico 
 
It was a tough year to be a tomato
cold wet spring
hot dry summer
records falling everywhere
nature falling everywhere
raspberries tinged with wildfire smoke
gardening gloves tinged with wildfire smoke
my eyes tinged with wildfire smoke
 
But there were others
successes
potatoes hiding underground 
happy to be safe down there 
and squash of every shape and color
asking, like beaming children,
are you proud of me?
and the soil, the earth itself 
so permanent and 
so ever-changing
ignoring us 
with all our good intentions
and our constant need to fix
everyone and everything
and like us, 
these maple leaves
of every shape and color
in various stages of decay
laughing at us 
on our way there
laughing with me
on my way there
underneath a warming blanket
preparing myself 
as well
for sleep.

This time

By Doug Sylver
Seattle, Washington, USA

This is when the Quileute tribe
calls getting to be the time
of no more berries.

Earlier sooner this time than ever.
It has been prophesied by others
that it will last for a time 

times and half a time.
Which time, which times
which half a time is this?

What happens after it has gotten to be the time
and the times of no more berries?
And then, for half a time

when no one can taste the memories
or recall the many times of berries?

Not Somewhere Else But Here

By Robert Witmer
Tokyo, Japan

A poem asks the reader to participate in the making of its meaning, and in this way binds the reader to the writer, while leaving the reader free to bring her own mental associations to the poet’s words and images. Thus, the poem combines a private and a public language in a process of communication. While poetry “makes nothing happen” (as Auden stated in his famous eulogy for Yeats), it can lift the veil from deeply disturbing aspects of our collective lives and in so doing ask us to rethink those troubling realties, which we often prefer to ignore, so long as we feel comfortably secure in our own personal lives. By engaging individual imaginations, poetry has the power to bridge the boundaries and divisions that keep us apart. This is not to say that poetry can improve the world on a scale that would empower the many millions of disadvantaged, mistreated, and politically invisible human beings. But it can help the rest of us to see that these people exist, and that their sufferings are real, and that we could make efforts in the real world to ameliorate the condition of their lives.

the wind picks up
a campaign poster
the hair just right

executive abusio
the warped rule
of blind mouths

wondering which way to turn the nut in charge

a caterpillar
crawls across the evening news
that orange hair

the king of clubs
trumped —
he throws his toys out of the playpen

politics
the ambidextrousness
of a dead bird

day laborer
climbing a ladder
out of the basement

pencil stub
wrinkled fingers pinch
another penny

a cold wind
haggles with golden leaves
savings and loan

a fork
in the road
nothing to eat

the cat lady’s eye
strays
each with its own name

a beggar sings
over a coffee tin
nickels counting time

no newspaper coverage
the homeless man
asleep on a bench

a homeless woman
sips from a birdbath
wrinkles in a rainbow

skin
brown and bruised –
the fruit within decays

road sign
rust
in the bullet holes

Peshawar
apples stacked neatly
as the guns

constant drizzle
a faded flag hangs heavy
over another war

fallen
into fallen leaves
toy soldier

crow’s feet
around the eyes
sunset on the battlefield

demilitarized zone
the space between
jugglers

the banker’s heart as capacious as an open-pit mine

nativity scene
behind an iron gate
the wise men long gone

tree by the wall
a solitary poem
in a life sentence

muddy field
a child in rags
sings to his buffalo

Help

By Robert Witmer
Tokyo, Japan

light
imprisoned in diamonds
the dark mine a dollar a day

windblown sand –
children in rags
staring as the boat recedes

orphans at the stoplight
together
we roll up our windows

winter
a bent spoon
in an empty pot

shoe polish
the toxic smell
of unemployment

a few stars
fewer leaves
his cardboard home

a rainbow ribbon
on a rich man’s sky
tree stumps

outside the new megastore
empty shopping carts
for the homeless

yesterday’s snow
under a naked tree
a homeless woman awaiting spring

old nails squeaking
in shrinking wood
campaign promises

the populist’s campaign
a loud speaker
distorts the platitudes

air raid
our last loaf of bread
blackens in the oven

a child’s balloon
drifts away
the wall crowned with broken bottles

First published: Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue 17

Human rights encompasses a great deal. As stated in the Preamble to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Extreme inequality has profound human rights implications. Nearly 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty, and over 40% live on less than $5.50 per day, thus depriving those members of the human family access to basic needs and services.  

Once Bereft

By Robert Witmer
Tokyo, Japan

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left
            — Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”

From Pangaea to the Tethys Sea our Mother Earth goes round, and round our central star appears, the Sun, traveling east to west, from Ethiopia to Hesperides, each day a blessing in this circle of life. Brought into this vital light with plants of every kind and fauna filling land and sea, fruitful, we were. And it was good.

We crept into caves to mark the walls with ochred images of creatures honored for their flesh, their spirit and being, different from our own, yet of the same.

The First Peoples made their homes, dressing their bodies, teaching their tongues, cherishing their kinship with the land.

We learned to turn the very Earth, the oldest of our gods, with plows, back and forth, year after year, reaping, sowing, wearing away the immortal, the seemingly inexhaustible land we would one day forget. And so, as our numbers rose and our cities grew and our knowledge fed our need for power, we tamed and conquered all. Or so we thought we would, quick, ready, resourceful humankind, now more human, less kind, kinship reduced to a great machine.

Our hearts cooled, the Earth warmed, we saw no end in sight. Round and round, each fight, another victory. And then we mastered space itself, we landed on the moon. What sight! The Earth in space – “a tiny, fragile ball of life, hanging in the void.” A blue dot where we are all one people, living in one world, together in our need to keep this improbable home home to all creation in all its diversity, its fragile beauty, our one and only home.

Let the earth last
And the forests stand a long time
            — from a poem by the 15th century Aztec poet Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin

weather satellites
go round and round
empty promises

fracking
we learn new ways
not to change

an electric car
sighs to a stop
the last glacier groans

snowmelt
plum blossoms
on a polar bear

bird of paradise
a rainbow’s love song
in a chainsaw repertoire

strip mined
our purple mountain majesties
the emperor’s new clothes

old pond
spewing toxic waste
a frog croaks

the caboose
rattles past the setting sun
dust on stunted corn

washing up
on an island paradise
plastic plates

rising tide
she lifts her skirt
to wipe away a tear

a blue balloon
rising into a summer sky
the child waving goodbye

dry riverbed
the old bridge creaks
bone on bone

First published: Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue 15

Bleeding Skies

by Florence Heyhoe
County Down, North Ireland

bleeding skies
children playing 
in mine fields

Predators

by Florence Heyhoe
County Down, North Ireland

predators 
on the web 
trafficking 

As Einstein would say 

By Diana Webb
Leatherhead, Surrey, UK

She is walking back from the supermarket, bag weighed down by difficult choices, when in the day’s last rays she sees it.

empty snail shell 
caked with soil 
the relic 

Some go to great pains, she recalls, to stop these small land gastropods from underfoot death, by moving them away from pedestrian paths. This one exited naturally, protective architecture unshattered.

tick in the box
between her fingertips 
a miracle 

The creature left its home for her to contemplate under the roof of her own small home on the patch they shared in their mutual home planet earth. 

silver trace 
one gleam of ink at the tip 
of the spiral 

After the Bomb

By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA

after the bomb
in each window shard
reflected stars

First published in The Bamboo Hut, February 2024

First Day

By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA

first day
at rehab
child’s pose

Open Carry

By Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA

sliver moon —
in the dead of night
open carry

In a Glass Bowl

By Tish Davis
Concord Township, Ohio, USA

so many
so far from home
winter rain

I’m an American in China working to restart the supply chain disabled by the worst flooding in Thailand in half a century.

translating work instructions—
the universal language
of the office clock

As I walk through the narrow aisle between the cubicles, a woman calls to me from one of the window-lit offices reserved for visitors. It’s one of the Thai engineers.  She’s extraordinarily petite and in her conservative blue dress, reminds me of Bemelmans’ Madeline.  After rummaging through a paper bag, she presents me with a gift—a small package of white cookies shaped like miniature straws. I don’t mention that I have allergies and cannot eat them.  Instead, I sit so as not to tower over her, and express my sorrow about the flooding.”How are the temples in Ayutthaya?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“And the immense statue of the reclining Buddha on the grounds of the Wat Yai Chai Mongkol? And the row of Buddas in the courtyard—the ones in saffron robes?”

These too have been damaged.”And the monks? What about the monks that live there? And the dogs, the temple dogs?”

All were rescued as the government sent in boats.

By now she’s crying. I never mention that I’ve forgotten her name.

touching
for the first time
a winter orchid

first published in Haibun Today, Winter2012

Author’s Note:  The 2011 Thailand flood is still one of the country’s worst humanitarian disasters and the most expensive flood loss on record for the global insurance industry. 1

  • The key takeaways from this Economic insight are:
    • Thailand’s rapid urbanization of areas around large river systems exposed it to significant flood risk.
    • A combination of weather events and flood mismanagement resulted in USD 15 billion of insured losses in 2011 (USD 18 billion today).
    • High accumulation of property risk, due to the success of Thailand’s manufacturing sector, resulted in insured losses that exceeded all expectations.
    • As climate change increases extreme rainfall events, adaptive measures such as flood-resilient urban infrastructure will be crucial to manage flood risk.

1. Swiss RE Institute:    https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research/Economic-Insights/the-costliest-flood-thailand-flood.html

Ramadan Moon

By Nitu Yumnam
Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Ramadan moon—
a Gazan child’s
empty plate

Nakba 2023

By Vidya Premkumar 
Wayanad, Kerala, India 

nihilism
an ice cream truck
with children’s bodies

Nectar

By Tish Davis
Concord Township, Ohio, USA

The African Violets are about to bloom on the sill next to her bed. She taught me how to split these plants in two and how to stimulate the roots by pouring water into the dish that holds the clay pot. Sometimes when I visit, she cuts a slit in a small square of heavy paper and then inserts a single leaf.  She always asks me to add the water to the glass jar.

On this first Mother’s Day without my mom, I try to surprise this other one.  After the nurse wheels my friend to the dining room for lunch, I hang a hummingbird feeder in the tree outside her window.  It takes a while, but the tiny birds finally arrive.  Hovering in place, they sip from small plastic cups. 

They can even fly backward . . .

light rain
the cemetery vase
also finds me

Author’s Note: Social isolation is a growing public health concern that affects many older people including residents in Long Term Care facilities.  Globally, up to 50% of older persons over 60 years of age are at risk of experiencing social isolation and the potential for accompanying mental health issues. 1  

Last month, the White House released its first-ever staffing minimums for nursing homes that receive federal funding. The new staffing rules require each resident to receive at least 3.48 hours of care per day. They also require that care facilities have a registered nurse on site 24/7.  This is going to present a challenge for states like Kentucky who’ve faced nursing home staff shortages since the pandemic. 2

1. National Library of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8236667
2. Spectrum News: https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2024/05/07/new-nursing-home-staffing-minimum

The Long Walk

By Vidya-Premkumar
Wayanad, Kerala, India 

Vidya-Premkumar-The Long Walk
Vidya-Premkumar-watermelons