Recently I went on a walk with friends from our Buddhist study group. An artist in my long-time book club had invited us to write a poem for our December meeting, which is the one where we don’t read a book. I awoke the morning after the walk already composing haiku. I checked, and, sure enough, the traditional format is 5-7-5 syllables. Somehow that became “word” instead of “syllables,” so I am calling these little poems sort-of-haiku. One thing I found interesting was that the first two lines came rather easily (with a little editing); the third line took its time presenting itself to me. It was fun to create in a new way!
Clouds pretending to be spaceships
Rocks sliced like a loaf of bread
Dharma buddies observing with delight
Hiking slowly with a geologist
We ply him with question after question
And Tom has answers—enlightening!
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Buddhists hiking in the hills
Come across the corpse of a coyote
Death—entry into the mystery