Tag Archives: IMprov haiku

Pawpaw Male and Female Difference: Haiku

Out with my paintbrush
finding pawpaw pollen. Once
you see gold, it clicks.

At the request of a #PawpawFanatic on Facebook, I followed up with a limerick:

Telling pawpaw gender is easy
if you look when it’s not breezy.
Glance at a bloom when it’s still.
You won’t get a thrill,
but the males will make you sneezy.

God’s Hand In Nature: Haiku Retort

An Instagram post: “She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon]” #Kurtvonnegut #catscradle
My retort:

To see, in Nature,
God’s Hand, is high gratitude*.
To understand? Grace.

OR
*just means you’re grateful.

I Need A New Pruning Hook: Peace Prayer Haiku

As we pray for peace,
I think to myself: “I could
use a pruning hook.”
——-
The Muse for this was a prose piece written by Kate Phillips on Facebook:

“There is no Christmas in Bethlehem this year.
The tours and pilgrimages have all been cancelled. The streets are bare, the shops empty.
The Palestinian residents are in mourning. Celebrations have been replaced with a somber peace vigil and prayer service to mourn for the tens of thousands of people—mostly Gazans, mostly women and children—lost in the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
The traditional nativity scene at the Evangelical Lutheran church depicts baby Jesus on a pile of rubble, rather than resting in a manger. Instead of gifts, the wise men carry burial shrouds.
Ask anyone in Bethlehem this year what their Christmas wish is, the answer will be the same: they pray for peace.
Whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, a follower of some other tradition (or no religion at all), may we join their prayers. 🙏
May we affirm together that we are all worthy of dignity and love…
That divinity makes it way to earth, hidden in human form…
That the Kingdom of God yearns to flourish within each of us…
And that the best gift we can ask for is the gift of peace for all.
May we practice peace within ourselves…
Within our families and communities…
And pray that, one day, we will beat swords into plowshares.”
— Kate Phillips, Christmas Day, 2023