Haiku Riddle

Haikus are wonderful little verses. Like verbal microscopes, they focus on a tiny aspect of our world for us to contemplate. (Be sure to read the UPDATE at the end of this post.)

During one of my escapes from nightmares in the middle of the night, I went into my garden to enjoy the cooler air and listen to the silence. Haze obscured some of the constellations. I enjoyed the occasional owl hoot or rooster chorus in the neighborhood. Within a few minutes, though, the mosquitoes discovered me. As I walked back inside, I saw a flash of light through the trees' canopy. It was the moon.

It was so magical, hanging there in its crystalline beauty, I gazed transfixed for several minutes until this haiku entered my mind.

Shadowed moon rises

A sliver of its fullness

Above dawn's aura.

Here's a bit of a riddle for you.

What phase of the moon does this show? Hardly a difficult question, I know. Hope I didn't insult anyone's intelligence.

Does anyone else out there "escape" from their nightmares in some way other than just lying there in bed trying to go back to sleep.

Today (July 20) Jason McBride, of Weird Poetry, shared a haiku and story about how he escaped to the seashore with a book of poetry and discovered how refreshed he felt after a while. He realized his life was pretty good if he could find a comforting spot by the sea and a book nearby to ease the unpleasant things in life.*

What is your way of escaping briefly to a place of rest and recuperation? Let us know in the comments.

Thank you, all, and hope you're well and inspired by the world around you. If you wish, tell me a little about your physical world … your home, neighborhood, yard, general environment. What changes do you see day-to-day? Does anything surprise you as you walk by something your see every day?

*I was going to share a few haikus I'd written to show a similar idea, but instead of copying them to repost them here, I cut them from the originating file and lost them. Major dumbness! Always copy! Never cut!

UPDATE: I FOUND THE POEMS. I LOVE HARD COPIES!

I keep a loose leaf binder of all my poems. As I sat, moping at how stupid I was for flummoxing the copy of some haikus from the digital file to this post, I suddenly realized I had recently made copies of recent poems. HUZZAH! There they were, a neatly copied hard copy page of the haikus. All I had to do was type them back into my digital file and then post them here. Hope it was all worth the blood, sweat, and tears … (oh my!).

Enbarrassment of Riches: Haikus

Yellow blossoms wave

Flixweed blooms across the yard

Turns to straw too soon.

I awake to see

Leaves meshing their hues like a

Verdant patchwork quilt.

Even the cooled bedroom

Stifles all in the damp heat

I struggle to rise.

Feet upon the floor

I anticipate the pain

When I stand erect.

Could it be that smoke

Won't smother us this summer

We'll see tomorrow.

Garden cleared of weeds

Clear skies so far gleam deep blue

I lounge in my Eden.