The end of the year is auspicious.

The end of the year signals the beginning of the next and almost always involves a window.  Liquid art.  What frames intentions better than a window.  If you be lucky, a cat, too.  Also, a  piece of proper toast with olive oil will do nicely and coordinates well with any poem which may appear.   Ring a bell for good measure.

The center is ever forming

No gesture can quite capture (nor should it) a center.  Nor what flows from it.  Mystery is just this
-- small as a sky, large as a pebble, and the source of each haiku.  Think of this tonight, as you pour your best friend a glass of wine.

Some flowers can only be appreciated in the abstract

Some can only be named in the abstract and yet names & details are sources of beauty. Something to consider as you eat breakfast, as you place the next gesture to paper.

Silver, red & gold

for this time of lights.  For the time of moving inward. Now, you are ready to give up the waiting, the stillness.  Your feet have never given up on their love of imbalance which leads to the great dance.  Put on that silver bracelet with the garnet chip.  Savor a spoonful of pomegranate seeds.  Read a favorite poem before leaving the house.

Persimmons gladden the sky

There's something about trees in winter.  Leafless.  Vulnerable.  Raw beauty.  And yet, and yet, here are winter persimmons for the picking.  And for the birds.  Persimmon bread & cookies.  An haiku unfolds in the highest branches.  

Time to make time

Soon, it will be Winter Solstice.  That time to make time to center inward.  Then, time to move outward.  Much like a spoon does for soup.  A pen to poem.  Nothing happens before a still moment.  Perhaps, beauty.  Perhaps, grace.  Yes, to both.

Winter is taking over

Bark reflects the seasons as dramatically as new buds, as snow.  Holds both tenderly in balance. Much like simmering red sauce does with steaming pasta.  And always like that pristine black notebook waiting for the first gestures of a poem -- bark & all.

Not falling stars

but fallen stars.  How they illuminate a sidewalk.  Miraculous.  Miraculous as a shared meal.  Miraculous as one word joins another.  

Be and/or Become

whatever you wish it to be and/or become, it will.  You can feel it unfolding.  Like tasting a favorite sauce after taking-in its delicious smell.   Like seeing words coalesce on the page into meaning that surprises, that delights.  The fresh dance of what is and what will become.

Looking down & not knowing

what you are seeing but knowing that is enough to go no deeper.  It's akin to know when to stop adding spices to a dish.  It's akin to knowing when to stop editing a poem before it becomes muck.

Use your imagination or stand on your head.

Is there any difference?  The distinction between red radishes is putting a fine point to finger food, don't you think?  Perhaps this is a reintegration of a red fox?  Or the first line of a poem that you will edit well into the morning?  Only the red fox knows, and she's moved on out of rain's hearing.  And furthermore, has no interest in haiku.

Sometimes the name comes later

It's enough to simply like something.  To stop, look, smile.  Or in any order you wish.  Don't fret, the name will come as surely as your hand will reach for the perfect spice to season the dish.  Yes, just as a pen trusts ink.  Now, I remember, the name is "persimmon."