in-Habit-able Haiku

A book on mini-habits I purchased during last year’s NF4NF conference in Texas is finally being read.  I don’t remember who pointed me to this book…perhaps Kristi Holl.  Maybe Pat Miller, Kristen Fulton, Steve Swinburne, or Peggy Thomas.  But thanks to whomever did. (And to the author, Stephen Guise, Mini-Habits)

The purchase was digital.  Yes–out of sight, out of mind–until this year’s conference drew near and prompted me to open the file in my Kindle app.

The read has resulted in my rising early in small, minute increments. Most days now before daylight.  I spend time on the deck with coffee, the tablet, the dogs, and time to read scripture and pray.

I decided, after a few days of that mini-habit, to add one other small mini-habit to the habit.  Mini-writes.  Something small, each day.  Something brief, easily achievable.  Something easy, delightful, and something that would let me say, “I wrote today.”

The perfect candidate? Haiku.
In perfect form? Nope.  Perhaps I took a few liberties, which a poet easily and guiltlessly can, before daylight.

But I wanted to share my small successes, and gathered the first eleven here.
Let me know if you have a favorite. I hope you enjoy them.

MORNING HAIKU

morning mists grow thin
as words appear, revisions
of my fading dreams

POEM-A-CUP

long night dozes off
and day wake finds me smiling
sipping on my thoughts

STRETCHING

loosening haiku
my freedom from the form is
aromatic java

SKYOUETTE

yawning pink and blue
a waking summer sky hosts
a ballet of bats

DREAM WIND

sad willow stands still
but maple’s leaves flutter in
her own dreams of wind

PECKER

pecker taps a pine
gray flakes of bark flutter down
and beetles cower

QUIET FAST

fog muffles morning
bats hang hungry in the trees
breakfast past hearing

STILL LIFE

I chatter chatter
to scampering squirrels above
who pause on tree limbs

UNPAVED

garden path disturbed
bricks tilted by the restless,
but slow, toes of trees

BREAKFAST MEANS

a single robin
hopping on a vast green lawn
seeks a worm’s demise

IRREGARDED BUSH

a haiku or two
in hand is worth a dozen
pantoums in the bush

(c) Damon Dean, 2015