Haiku and Nature

Haiku is a very good way to keep in touch with nature. Haiku poetry is immediate and direct. You write about something striking you see in nature. The poem expresses how the event in nature moves you. The poetry form can be 5-7-5 syllables, or 3-5-3 syllables, or free syllables. This short poetry takes much time and care to find the right words. It must be both simple and expressive. It is a very attractive writing form for minimalists like myself. Here are some examples:

Apples fall
Sweet moldy dampness
Fog enfolds.

Empty nest up high
In a thousand bare branches
Smoky blue forest.

Poetry like this is great for outdoorsy people. Sit at the beach and watch the waves while you write. Think about it as you ride your bike. You can compose it in your head as you hike. I like to speak it out loud as I drive long distances in my car. If you want to learn the form and become a poet, read this SimpleTens article: How to Write a Haiku Poem.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and I would love to see some of your poetry.
O, Sweet Nature

Tweet Lights

Lights at night, garden silhouettes, reflections on the pond so still. Sculpted figures coupling over the water, I see your form, reflected.

Another twitter nature poem.

Tweet Thunderstorm

Twitter Poem: Thunderstorm, wind-rain, dark-light. Leafy boughs heave and dip. I see they are in love with the dripping wet and bending their stiff limbs.

Tweet Ole October

Twitter poem: Ole October, a shift in wind, and yellow leaves...just a few...flutter, then angle down. Do trees lose their green coats in anger or in joy?

Tweet Water Plus Paint

Twitter Poem: Water plus paint makes a beautiful watercolor: Black clouds looming, wind whipping and raindrops in my colors...just makes my painting sing!

Tweet Two

Twitter Poem: Two squirrels, leaping from tree to ground and back, gathering fall goods. I feel a quiet joy, the rightness of life, past links to future.

Need to Be Happy

I was just thinking this morning that everything you need to be happy is already there inside you.

Twitter Poem: Nature's language spoken by orchids: simple forms express shape wildly divergent. Sexy lips of lovely colors shout welcome to all in beauty.

Wow that's bad poetry-hee hee hee.

Tweet Breath of Fresh Air

Twitter Poem: A breath of fresh air, the warm autumn sun bathes my face, a gentle breeze rustles the yellowing leaves. Now I relax in peace. Life is good.

Wildfires

Wildfires are breaking out everywhere. The plains and the foothills canyon are especially vulnerable. Though fires are part of a natural ecology, there are so many houses now in these areas that almost every fire has loss of structures and sometimes people. The world is so crowded. Such a big change over even my puny lifetime.

Twitter poem: So dry, grasses crisp beneath my feet. Touch this unpleasant, mournful plain? Dormant still looks like death. Dream, so, the verdant dreams.

Songs of Nezahualcoyotl

Not forever on Earth,

only a little while here.

Though it be jade it falls apart,

Though it be gold it fades away,

Though it be quetzal plumage it is torn asunder.

Not forever on Earth,

only a little while here.

--poetry of Nezahualcoyotl, the "half-starved coyote,"

Lord of Texcoco, Aztec aristocracy, sixteenth century, before the magnificent culture was wiped out by the crude Spanish barbarians.

White Heron Rises Over Blackwater

the white heron

rising over the swamp and the darkness

his yellow eyes and broad wings wearing

the light of the world in the light of the world--

ah, yes, I see him.

He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.

--Mary Oliver

A Scrap of Poetry

...the water of the ocean divides with perfect courtesy, just to let you in!  -- Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is my favorite living poet. Her words most often touch on nature and how she experiences it. I admire her greatly.