Haiku on Spring's Fleeting Prettiness

Pink tears in sunlight,

A cherry tree's too short life,

Beauty flees apace.

Ras Bir, 1976

Leave the town;

Not everyone can,

You need a camel,

Or a Land Rover,

(a real one),

And a driver

Who can infer

The road.

Take two spares,

We might be on

The moon's face,

Behind you,

Djibouti,

Ahead,

Rock,

Scrub,

A kind of

Desert.

To be lost,

To be stuck,

Is perhaps,

To die.

Why go?

To see the light;

Light houses

Call us.

It sits alone,

They all do,

This one watches

The Gate of Tears,

Flash-flash it says,

Then it rests,

Then flash-flash,

It works alone,

Its mates

Are ships,

Someday, perhaps,

There will be,

A real road.

For now,

The track is

Half imagined,

And the place?

Unchanged,

Unchanging,

As if we,

Had never come.

Djibouti, French Territory of The Afars and Issas (FTAI)

Block Island Bound

The clouds were high,
The sun was bright,
Our boat bit into
White capped seas,
In the distance,
Barely seen,
A hint,
A smudge,
Our place to be,
Our goal,
To troll
Beneath the cliffs,
The sandy perch,
Of Southeast Light,
To troll for blues,
Or maybe bass,
A good days work,
Of playing hard.
But meanwhile,
There's the wind
And seas,
Right in our teeth,
An hour or more.
As Point Jude fades
Astern of us,
We dream of fish,
And keep her straight,
And hope our reels
Will sing a song.

Scene From My Desk

The naked forest,
Rests under the harsh gray sun,
Stripped bare of its green.

Winter Scene From a Window

A line of roosters,
Peck round a fallen walnut,
January's feast.

Mountain Gardens

We grow with passion,
Our only cash crop is rocks,
Want peas? Import soil!

The End of Hunting Season

Bear Hunting is Done,
Silence reigns in the mountains,
Case that three-oh-eight.