birdsong
filling a patch of blue –
sudden squall
 

rising tide
a blue heron lifts
the dawn

autumn rain . . .
and still the creek
is silent
 

a cloud
drifts across the moon
 . . . autumn chill
 

melting snow
the first daffodil
turns to the sun

Susan Constable has been writing and publishing Japanese forms of poetry in both print magazines and on-line journals since 2006. In 2010, she received first place in the Porad Haiku Contest, third in the Tanka Society of America Contest, and a Sakura Award at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Haiku Festival. She lives with her husband on Canada's beautiful west coast. 

like question marks
bee stings cover my legs
each welt asking
what I did that summer
to make my father angry

below the feeder
a few grey feathers
flutter in the wind ---
over new fallen snow
your whispered apology

no moon
when the doorbell rang
that autumn night
the stars went out one by one
and our world turned black

discovering
just how much you know
about me ---
one Babushka doll
inside another

 
snow flurries
blur the edge of my garden
as night descends
the word dementia swirls
then settles in my mind

 
a yellow crocus
opens to the morning sun ---
in the waiting room
a woman's warm hello
hangs in icy silence

I can hear someone moaning like a dog who has been hit by a car on the side of a highway. My pain has now overwhelmed me, and despite being in a fog, I can grasp that it is coming from me.

a nurse
carefully opening up
about mistakes

Very seldom do I meet with a friend now, when at some point they don't ask how I remain positive, despite what I've been through. When I reply that no one can be all the time, still they persist.

under the moon
the fishermen
still digging for worms

re-inventing the sound of sky starlings

 Failed Haiku #37

the only
solace tonight
moonsong

in the woods
I fall into the glow
of fireflies

little moth
is it moondust you leave
on my window sill?

casting nets
to catch the stars
lone fisherman

out of
a butterfly's dream . . .
morninglory

old pond . . .
a turtle slips into
moonlight

moon bathing
I slip into the stars
of my kimono

embroidered in the emperor's clothes temple bells

becoming autumn
the voice of the mountain
river

Akitsu Quarterly Winter Issue 2018

miscarriage . . .
cherry blossoms hung heavy
with snow

Mainichi Press on March 11, 2020.

deeply
rooted in mud
sister lotus
teach me the Dao
of blossoms

the music
of a billion stars
a sitar's mind
becomes the heartbeat
of this and the other world