Small Things

small things

excerpts

american haiku

by c.a. leibow

1

paper lantern lights my path dancing shadows

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daffodil blossoms everywhere his birthday to day the world is five years old1

1

According to Buddhism, with every birth the world is born anew, because no one will experience the world like each newborn and with each death, the world that was known by that person dies with them. The world is constantly being born and dying.

3

rock-face crevice looking for blossoms mists of a waterfall

4

my late winter love affair: change of seasonsthe snow melts

5

from a city rooftop a mother sings hot apartment-sleepless child

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cooking in silence she grabs my ass

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rodeo queen home from school finds only a bridle leftpoor parents

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now she laughssuicide threats, just yesterday

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the old man reaches for the morning newspaper; the sprinklers come on.

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outside the streetlights go out hand between her legscat scratches at the door

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she runs onto the bus sits next to meher mother calls her back.2

2

Riding the 240 bus home from work

12

her head covered in snow digging for china family dog

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spelling out her name in an ancient script of light; one lone firefly.3

3

Adapted from a really long earlier poem

14

clouds spentin a new pool of water, a flower’s face

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ole mister house fly i am trying to write here! flyprints on my paper

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i lose count of breathson my lap, my cat’s eyes half open

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looking for a part the daisies find it firsttriumph manifold4

4

For a 1973 Bonneville

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commuter train speeds pastbetween the tracks, a wildflower sways

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staring out the window cherry blossoms covered in snowcooped up little boy

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little thieves stealing sunlightgolden dogwood blossoms5

5

Dogwood blossoms next to an apartment complex on capital hill March 22nd 2009

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caught in a spring wind fragrant weeping plum blossoms stolen haiku

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new moon where are you going little beetle? fireflies show the way6

6

I have never seen a firefly in Utah. This was taken from a memory from Florida

23

laying on the floor, a new black dressmoonlight on her skin7

7

Feb 7th 2009

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cold winter wind her head on my chest steam rises from our tea cups

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deep asleep woken by her touchalone in my bed

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late morning making my bed a kite visits my window

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