“A Few Haiku (21)”

On By Mike U.In Poetry

(c) 2021 by Michael L. Utley

(#121)

old rain barrel
dark waters of
forgotten dreams

…..

(#122)

first snow
white kiku on
autumn’s casket

…..

(#123)

stone cairns
mark my future; stone heart
marks my past

…..

(#124)

no more songbirds
nest in my heart
your voice fades

…..

(#125)

old mountain’s silence
questions answered
as I climb the path

…..

(#126)

rain turns to hail
my heart takes a pounding
from my tears

25 thoughts on ““A Few Haiku (21)””

  3. questions answered
    as I climb the path
    That’s optimistic, the way you used word climb ,
    There is a mountain for each one of us to climb , all through our life we keep trying to reach the pinnacle, how much time , how much success they are just parameters,
    But that’s life , an uphill task 😊

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    1. I’m always pleased to know my poetry speaks to you, Reena. Thanks for the nice comment. You’re certainly correct with regards to that mountain we all must climb. It’s the journey, not necessarily the destination, as they say. Thanks for reading and leaving such a thoughtful reply. 🙂

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    1. Thanks for your kindness, Lamittan. I’d been wanting to write about stone cairns for a while now. They’re so symbolic in so many ways. They provide a roadmap for the path ahead as well as showing where we’ve been. For many of us, the past has hardened our hearts. Painful memories, tragedies, loneliness, fear and loss. When I look back on my life, I see a lot of those stone cairns marking difficult events. It’s hard sometimes to keep from back-tracking and revisiting all those past memories. Moving forward–maintaining our momentum–is really our best option, and hopefully there will be plenty of markers to show the way to a better life. I appreciate your comments as always, Thanks for reading. 🙂

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    1. Thanks so much, Kirsten. Man, I seem to write a lot of sorrowful stuff, eh? But it helps me sort out my life, and hopefully resonates with others. Sorrow is most certainly a universal emotion. I remember intense thunderstorms from my youth growing up on a farm. Sometimes the rain would turn to hail and everything in sight would be assaulted. Farmers in my area must purchase hail insurance to protect their crops from summertime hail storms. I feel like those wheat fields in those summer deluges–so vulnerable to the whims of nature (and, from a human perspective, the emotional and physical pain visited upon us by others). Those hail storms of the heart really hurt. Thanks for your comments, Kirsten. I’m always delighted to know my words have meaning for you. 🙂

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  6. You’re welcome Mike. Sorrow is definitely universal and it’s good we have an outlet to express ourselves here. Your thoughts on the wheat fields is deep and relatable, and I’m sorry for your hurt.

    I’m always learning something new from your personal stories too. I’ve never heard of hail insurance – very interesting.

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    1. Thanks, Kirsten. Yeah, entire fields can be destroyed in minutes. In my area, many people raise pinto beans and alfalfa, but we raised wheat on our small farm. Summer “monsoon season” was always fraught with fear of hail storms. As an aside, the nearby tiny town of Dove Creek, Colorado billed itself for years as “The Pinto Bean Capital of the World” and even had a big sign on the edge of town saying so (heck, at 700 population, every part of town was “the edge of town”). They took the sign down years ago, however. Not sure why, unless someone demanded proof they couldn’t provide. Still, lots of beans there! Oh well. 😀

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    1. Thanks, Rhyan. Yeah, cairns are interesting. I’ve hiked on desert and mountain trails where cairns guided the way, but they always seemed to be more than simply piles o’ rocks. There was a strange beauty in seeing these random objects balanced atop one another. Some folks get really artistic and leave crazily creative cairns out in the wilderness, in streams, in parks, in forests, in deserts, as sort of monuments to nature or the human spirit or whatever they fancied at the moment of creation. I love the quiet imagery of these stone piles. Anyway, thanks for the nice comment. I appreciate it. 🙂

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    1. Thanks, David. That imagery was just too good to pass up. Hail storms are fierce and intense. A few from my childhood left several inches of hail on the ground as well as a mini-flash flood, which was uncommon at the farm. At least we don’t get baseball-sized hail here like they do in the mid-west (yet). But yeah, it’s a sad haiku and the imagery is brutal. I seem to be drawn to melancholia. Anyway, thank you, sir, for the kind words. 🙂

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