If only . . .

This is Gregory Longenecker who joined the Southern California Haiku Study Group

when Jerry Ball moved south. You can see some of the cobbles of one of 

Asilomar's early buildings behind him. We are all getting ready to have Garry Gay

take our group photograph for Haiku Pacific Rim 2012.

pillbug

if only life

were that simple 

  

Gregory Longenecker 

Scattered Acorns; 2014 YT Membership Anthology, page 28

Shiki, himself

In Matsuyama in 2007, at the Shiki Museum, we met

an almost life-size Shiki. I would rather have this 

than the cardboard John Wayne (my cousin has) any day!

spring rain:

browsing under an umbrella

at the picture-book store 

Masaoka Shiki

(from poemhunter.com)

Sorry, about yesterday, Our local internet took the day off
after something (probably road construction)
severed something essential, so there wasn't a post.

Beach Sagewort

Dune flowering at Monterey Dunes. Quite a bit of silvery beach sagewort and

one California Poppy, glowing during a haiku event.

heads of beach sagewort

nodding to each other like

ladies gossiping

Kiyiko Tokutomi

beach sagewort

mirrors a sunless sky

quietly . . . quiet

Judith Schallberger

   

San Francisco Bay Area

Nature Guide and Saijiki;

edited by Anne M. Homan

Patrick Gallagher

Patricia J. Machmiller

2010, page 42

Wildflower Walk

A nice showing of the Blue Fiesta Flower during springtime in Alum Rock Park,

on the ginko we took with Ranger Roger Abe several years ago.

The fiesta flower gets its common name because its flexible, slender stems 
will stick lightly to fabric, so one can dress up a blouse to wear to a fiesta!

There is also a white variety.

(The most recent Mariposa had this haiku

which suggested this post.)

wildflower walk

I have all the photos of them

I'll ever need

Patrick Gallagher

  

Mariposa 32, Spring/Summer 2015

Haiku Poets of Northern California

And this is the way the sky looked over Alum Rock Park that day!

For you, O Gull!

A water take-off seen from the beach at Asilomar during a YT Haiku Retreat!.       jhhymas

For you, O gulls,

I order slaty waters

and this leaden sky!

   

Richard Wright

   

American Poetry; the Twentieth Century, Volume Two, 

Library of America, 2000, page 642.

American author & novelist Richard Wright wrote a large body of haiku in the last two years of his life when he was living in France.

A book of excellent selections is available.

Where Sea Meets Land

The Monterey Bay seen from Asilomar during the YT Haiku Retreat in September, 1992. jhhymas


the autumn seashore --
rolling waves tossed high and white
so much has ended

Patricia Machmiller
 
Blush of winter moon, Jacaranda Press, 2001

Cliff House Kukai

January 11, 2006, Dr, Akito Arima and Garry Gay, smiling

at the Cliff House during Dr. Akito Arima's visit and

after our ginko in Muir Woods. For the kukai, Dr. Arima, Garry

and Patricia Machmiller served as judges.

This was one of Garry's choices  at the kukai.

lightning-struck redwood—

inside the charred hollow

how small I am

Ebba Story

* * *

Garry won the Gerald Brady Senryu contest in 2010 

with this verse.  

   

my skeleton

going for a walk

in the cemetery

Garry Gay

and this Honorable Mention in the same contest

has been one of my favorites:

wishbone

as we pull it apart

I change my mind

Garry Gay

Frogpond; the journal of the Haiku Society of America,

 Vol. 34:, 2011 pages 168-169.