he stores away
the snow-blower:
she's knocking on wood

tornado siren

interrupts my dinner-

hello spring

I'm listening to one right now!

Down by the disused station starts a trail. We follow the river our warm clothes buttoned up against the cold. Long fleeced sheep huddled together by a dry stone wall. It's early March and there are still small patches of snow here and there along the way.

spring melt
a pair of dippers skim
the sound of water

Little Onion

Haiku Mike has a picture taken so many miles away from where this is written about but which brought me straight back to it when i saw it. You can see it here Falls - there are some wonderful photographs at Mike's site.

the smile that humbles
the cherry blossoms -
too far to see

p.s. Today, the cherry blossoms have
reached their peak in Washington, DC.
f/k/a celebrates.

colors of spring
cover winters carcass-
life after death

almost easter
the car salesman tells me
to lighten up

Little Onion

file under c for cat











rain & then hail
just a little spring cleaning
for me and the street

pink tulip petals
strewn across the hearth rug
his mother's black eye

Little Onion

spring is late..
looking at your
empty pillow

budding hyacinth—
how lovely, dressed
for her first formal dance

> spring rain—
> filling my inbox
> fowarded emails

image©Naked Haijin Productions



warmer longer days-
it's too good to spend indoors
doing spring cleaning

a squirrel watches
as I count the tulips
in the garden

the river is running
old sediment red
since the drought's broken
a prospect of lives
full to the brim

overnight rain two dozen daffodils finally sprung

fragrance of plowed fields—
chirping sparrows
still feeding after dusk

St. Patrick's Day-
the dog laps water
from the bowl

Jason Sanford Brown

In celebration of Mother's day:


my 8 year old
has wrapped his own presents:
a peace lily candle ...and handkerchiefs

Sangeet

spring forward an hour and another hour to change them all

shower after shower
a crow with a large stick
crosses the rainbow

Little Onion

forty springs
my son and I watch
the tortoise blink

Little Onion

almost april --
baked apple season
lingers

grey morning --
a flurry of robins
on the mountain ash

school disco..
my children do not notice
the rain

Sangeet

winter drought
has left the little river
low on flow
there's not much in our world
that's this gin clear

between showers
back border daffodils
for Mother's Day

Little Onion

March afternoon-
flowers by the brook play a
watercolor fugue

mid-March
the only bouquet
a paper one

spring's running late —
has no-one told the martins
in the eaves?

spring break-
the kids play baseball
wearing coats

somewhere in the memory a green field

hummm starts and stops
an early hornet
tests its wings

spring morning
buzzards face traffic
eyeing
the dead rodent
in his winter coat

winters last gasp
in its Armageddon -
we know the ending

spring snow —
finches build a nest
in a dried-out wreath

officially spring -
the council daffodils
begin to bloom

morning hike
a mouthful of ice-cold
cuckoo-sorrel

Little Onion

image©With Words 2005







Spring Equinox-
the pre-Winter footage
of earthquake Kashmir

low over the hill
a red moon waxes ...
the empty road ahead

Alan Summers

Please consider visiting, and even giving a tiny donation:
Islamic Relief U.K.

first day of Spring —
cigarette butts emerge
from the snow pile

equinox
a Harley in the car-park, going nowhere
fast

dusk at the golf club
part of a marker pole
a tawny frogmouth

Alan Summers


It's Spring Equinox!


A tawny frogmouth is an Australian bird, related to the
nightjar family, but I couldn't resist pairing this haiku with
David Alderslade's Tawney Owl artwork (detail).


See Area 17 for a link to David's website, and quick, as
he's off to the States soon, touring with a band he did the
CD cover for!

Artwork by David Alderslade

march hares
our football gets stuck
in a gorse bush

Little Onion

spring equinox
the sound of light hail
against the bay window

Little Onion

spring arrives --
new snow bleaches
old snowbanks

[it was a very different spring equinox one year
ago in Schenectady; no snowbanks this year]

today tentative steps towards ...

spring sun's warmth -
I catalogue a book
of death poems

[ I'm cataloguing the British Haiku Society Library ]

spring rain
my son and I watch
a starling gathering twigs

Sangeet

icy spring —
a thin moon slips away
through victors' hands

Photo: AP/BBC

warm sunny days
a child's red spade
with a wooden handle
.
down the beach
comes a line of donkeys
their braying
a weather beaten man
in a sweat stained trilby
.
teenage tantrum
sometimes it's hard to tell
snowflake from blossom
.
Little Onion

Some Links:Beach Donkeys

this is a revised version of a previous post now removed

evening stroll..
sidewalk thick with
jasmine scent

from shorts to parka
to shorts again....
ah, the fickleness of March
that won't let me sort
my closet for the season

drawing the
designated driver straw --
st. patrick's day

sincerly,

i forget to spell check
my spring letter

spring clean in the garden muck remains

mid-March thaw --
et tu,
(snow) buddha?


***

full March moon -
is that
a friendly face?

ides of march trivia here

pink tulips stretch
above the daffodils -
watching the sunset

the little girl jumps
missing a handful
—wisteria droops

worm moon
greets me east
waning sun west

an arrest
in the country park
gorse flowers
.
Little Onion

almost spring-
testing tornado sirens
on a clear day

in the garden
last year's home run–
spring deepens

wilting tulips
before I discard them
I admire them again

Off to London just for the day. We wander through stalls set up inside old buildings, streets and passageways. I notice our fellow gazers, shoppers, walkers appear to be mainly Italian and Japanese in search of that special souvenir, some glimpse of authenticity, a mohicaned youth wearing a sandwich board, all piercings considered.

It starts to snow.

camden market
too many buddhas
to contemplate
.
Little Onion

Some Links:
Camden Lock .. Piercing in Camden .. Cyber Dog .. Stables Market

among jittery black birds– the still cardinal

Down by the Black Brook we find signs of spring. New shoots on the hawthorn but not yet any blossom. A few minnows in amongst the coke cans. And here in the shelter of a willow, is it some child's den?

a damp mattress
scattered with needles
the coot's legs
.

Little Onion

Some Links:
The Chemical House .. Coot

old yard-work shoes -
hard on the feet after
a dry winter

Three from today


the daily news —
a crow decries
the futility of it all


hands deep in earth —
a flock of sheep
in yon field... or people


sun in my eyes —
a cacophony of baby birds
guides me home


Norman

yellow and blue two little crocuses by the church wall

march football

the under-elevens

run off the shivers

.

Little Onion

calendar/schmalendar
it's time
for dandelion clocks

tangled and torn
an american flag—
spring thunder

after long stillness
the ice recedes and we may
travel safe again
our path together, can we
try this one more time, my love?

filing my taxes —
dandelion seeds
in the air

keeping her head down march winds

in between stanzas
an email from my brother—
re: spring

near Ashino, Japan
The monk, Saigyô, immortalized a certain willow in poetry.
The poet monk Saigyô

saigyo's willow -
the sound of purple
with a tiny frog

Alan Summers

image©Naked Haijin Productions

March thaw –
the feral cat
in the sun

sitting outside
in an almost warm night -
spring's first flying bug

dark skies--
she looks me up
and down

Jason Sanford Brown

longer days -
your tan lines
disappear

A bureaucrat writes...

As we approach the half-way stage of this project, I have a few observations on USH to date which are:

* No-one who has asked to join up has been refused;

* While Alison and me have moderating responsibilities,nothing posted here to date has needed any moderation, which is the way things should be;

* All things considered, I think the standards of postings to date on the site are remarkably high;

* Anyone who does not have a link listed and wants one should let me know;

* Andrew has suggested to me that we could get a book out of this and he's right, though I cannot commit to undertaking that venture personally;

* I think this type of communal weblog renders the traditional mailing list pretty much redundant.

While I hesitate to, in the words of Joe Jackson, "think about the end when it's only just the start*" I have a suggestion re the future. It was always intended that this community would have a limited life, but it would seem a shame to ditch the concept altogether.

My idea would be that after a rest period of a few weeks, somebody else sets up a summer site and takes on the admin role. This gives people the chance to opt out if they wish to and also to attract folks from other communities who might not otherwise be exposed to the site. It also enables those of you who are more creative and design savvy than me to come up with a new format.

If this went well, maybe someone else could then take on an autumn version and so on. In summary, it would be much like the rotating EU Presidency but without the translators, rows about the Common Agricultural Policy and Peter Mandelson.

Comments and suggestions re this idea are welcome.

And that's enough admin rambling for this evening.


* "Is she really going out with him" for those of you apart from Alison, John B and Paul M who were wondering...

P.S. David, Eric and Ed are right on the button about f/k/a btw - would have posted this over there but my comments keep following your weathervane south...

the crack
of a baseball bat—
spring deepens

early March
already the lark's song
up in the grey

March sunshine —
the girl at the coffee shop
calls me “hon”

almond flowers
holding tight
storm winds

spring dusk -
the neighbour's vacuum cleaning
ends with a sigh

Crow and me were part of THE HUMAN ZOO with taxi driver/performance artist/performance prose raconteur Lee Coombes. We were taking turns behind the window of a shut down shop as part of the Bath Fringe Festival.

So bear in mind, this rather damp and rainy 'almost spring' day that any empty shop fronts might harbour me, or crow, or a leotard wielding masked wrester (Lee).

caffeine overload-
Crow orders imported lager
and fizzy pop for me

I just came across this news item about the Met Office changing the official start of spring and some MPs arguing about it.


Link to Telegraph article

signs of spring
found in the night air -
scent of a skunk

before leaving a last pint at the "swan-with-two-necks"

sunny afternoon -
birds declare spring to
the playing children

ukku spring haiku

temple bells
once again through
pear blossoms


angelee

first day at work
not wanting to step on
the pristine snow

hair lines the nest
crows have woven us
into ewes and mares

granite slabs
so cool under my feet-
Tokyo station frogs!


image©Alan Summers 2002

c'mon, equinox --
anxious to plant
impatiens

Nisqually Delta Review (Winter-Spring, 2006)

crossing the river
with a smile - leaving
winter behind

openly looking for spring here there

Friends, I'm currently putting together a new renga/renku form a little similar to Gary Gay's "Rengay." This form will be for solo haiku poets. Also, I'm adding a new idea or stipulation, I hope, that will make this form at least somewhat stand out. What I want to know is if some of you would dabble with the form when I post the information? I would like to see what you all think and/or create.

spring cleaning—
the squirrel buries
his toil

some snow
resting a while
on my worn wooden chimes