Pat Shelley in her Red Hat

          

                                                                                                    photo by jhhymas

This is Pat Shelley in one of her favorite hats. She was a member of 

Yuki Teikei Haiku Society for many years until her death in 1997,

and wrote lovely, gentle, evocative haiku. This picture was taken

on a ginko, one of our haiku outings in Japanese gardens.

She liked to wear these little hats; it saddens me that I cannot now remember

whether this was the hat she liked best, and lost, ot the replacement

that was never quite the right color.

Below is one of her signature poems; it is a tanka, another Japanese form. A tanka generally has five lines and more explicitly stated emotional content than a haiku. In many ways, I think, this was Pat Shelley's preferred form. The poem below has appeared in several places and is often praised as a superb example of tanka form.

Wind, do not tease me 

do not muss my hair 

my joy is too large for the house

and I cannot go in

to await his coming

-Pat Shelley-