The Haiku Diaspora

Reciprocal
A man plunged in.
Alas! I awaited in vain
a fish in the air.

The chestnut branch
With its clusters of hands
Flat, soft, black.

Ants
Tiny nuptial cortege,
The ants are dragging
Petals of orange blossom…

Two earthen levees
Two networks of iron wire
Two civilisations

The toad sings a requiem
For the poor stars
Fallen in his puddle.

Listen to the rain
Falling broken on the ground:
Pity the sky once.

Why have
I thought the dew
Ephemeral when I
Shall rest so short a time, myself,
On earth?

A flight of pigeons
flutter their handkerchiefs
as the locomotive departs.

In the fountain
dry dolphins
pour out their thirst.

Flower, have pity for the worm,
it is not a bee,
its love is a blunder

Tree on a mountain
Some lightning gave it a fright
And it lost its leaves

My Love's lengthened hair
Swings o'er me from Heaven's gate:
Lo, Evening's shadow!

Before us, in the night
there was a tree, and the stars
perched on it like birds.

The river flowing
My eyes are following it
And I follow them…

Turning from the page,
Blind with a night of labour,
I hear morning crows.

Chiromancy
Deciphering good fortune
on the stripes of a leaf
the slow finger of the caterpillar.

From the broken pitcher
Of the crescent moon
The Milky Way pours across the heavens

On the pond wrinkled in the wind,
The elongated moon ruffles
Like a silver poplar.

Ant Eater
A trail of letters,
lower-case, imprints
its adventure on the ground.

The peacock opened out his fan,
and in it the light placed
a madrigal.

In a mirrored dawn
the bridge is combing
the river’s hair.

I was throwing out an old suit
and found the moon
in the waistcoat pocket.

A sudden caw, lost in the air,
Leaves the hillside to the autumn sun;
Save a leaf or two curling
Not a sound is here.

Powder
Of diamond
Upon a silver birch;
Old stone wall
Buried deep.

White petals afloat
On a winding woodland stream—
What else is life’s dream!

In the burning night
We are looking for an inn.
O those nasturtiums!