Riderless [Senryū]

riderless horses
race across the pasture:
finish line unknown

“Aftermath” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.

Livestock Rush Hour [Haiku]

horde of livestock 
sprawls puddle-strewn lane
between downpours.

Still Life [Haiku]

country road view:
nothing bigger than a mouse
is in motion.

DAILY PHOTO: North Laos Villages

Land at Rest [Haiku]

the land rests
after the harvest;
birds feed on remnants.

Silent Autumn [Haiku]

cows graze
amid rice stalks --
silently.

Nostalgia [Free Verse]

Eight thousand miles 
from my childhood home,
I'm pulled into a nostalgic
reverie
by the scent of straw
and cow shit.
This place,
on the other side of the world,
looks nothing like where I
grew up,
but that smell...

DAILY PHOTO: Mountain Contour

Image

Winter Fields [Haiku]

tawny grain stalks,
unkempt, like mussed hair;
a bird flies out.