A FALL POEM: TWIGS

HAIKUS ON TWIGS



Autumn ---/ even the birds/ and clouds look old.
                                                 --- Basho


1.
Autumn leaves leave twigs
When wild fall winds shear branches
Of their brittle foliage.

2.
Twigs cast thin shadows---
Like trembling fingers, clutch air
For their treetop tuck.

3.
They cannot hold on---
Twigs must break away like sons
Preening as oak trees.

4.
Twigs cracked by wild wind
Fall pell-mell on bristly grass,
Burn as quickly too

When fierce sunrays turn
Valleys to tittering flame:
A covenant with spring.

5.
When twigs break away,
Shorn saplings do not take them
Back as prodigal branches

Like shadows swallowed
By sunsets gone past mountains
Lost to murky nights.

6.
O, we are fallen twigs
And will not be back this way again
Though wild winds lift us.



--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, October 12, 2010