PROMPT: Opening Sentence

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

“From humble beginnings would come humbling ends.”

Holdout [Tanka]

a tree’s last blossom
seems to wait til no one
is looking to drop.
what a thing it must be
to see a holdout yield.

Faint Day Moon [Haiku]

a daytime half moon,
feeble compared to at night,
yet I stop to look.

Diabolical [Free Verse]

I don’t mind one crow,
on a rail or curb,
by its lonesome.

Nor am I troubled by
a large number of the birds.
(The group designation “murder,”
notwithstanding.)

But where two or three
are gathered, facing
each other…

That’s when I get the
heebie-jeebies.

Egret Eye [Haiku]

an egret peers
into the lake, past
surface reflections?

PROMPT: Fate / Destiny

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

No. Life would be hard to bear if one believed one were just playing out a program, and was not a free agent.

That said, I can’t say I have enough information to have a strong belief in the opposite (i.e. free will.)

So, like a number of other big philosophical questions, it is one for which I prefer ignorance over delusion.

Budding [Senryū]

budding limbs:
vibrant growth unseen from
the city beyond.

Swamphens [Haiku]

swamphens strut
at water’s edge, and
i’m a farmboy again.

Last Hurrah [Haiku]

late afternoon sun
catches yellow bloom clusters:
the day’s last hurrah.

Lakeside Leaves [Haiku]

lakeside leaves are 
turning and dropping, but
no floaters remain.