Big Long Haiku Sequence

I ended up in the jury pool yesterday for most of the day and didn't get around to posting any haiku - soooo - he is a little make up for yesterday. Pretty nice. Special for Bill.

Gabriel Rosenstock Farrera (2003)

A gunsaku (haiku sequence)written in the Catalonian Pyrenees, April 2003


dying winds –
faint mountain path
to a disused church


surrounded
by so many buttercups
how sober – the horse


April sunshine –
the raven announces
the end of the snows


with each call
the cuckoo
melts the snow


as though tomorrow
may never dawn –
all day, the swallows


an old fortress?
cow dung baking
in the sun


how sweet the grass!
the mountain horse
not yet slaughtered


mountain stream
hurrying, hurrying
where to?


somewhere in the fog
the little bell
around the horse’s neck

the cuckoo –
listen!
is she counting syllables?

old man singing in the field
drawing down the sun
all over the valley


the patient mule, standing,
what does he think
of the sparrows?


feeding time –
the old man
singing to the rabbits

one crisp sound –
voices of sparrows
dripping of melting snow


thin mountain air
everywhere: rock crevices
empty walnut shell

snowcapped hills –
the foal’s mouth
flecked with mare’s milk

old tower-bell
in Farrera de Pallars –
when will you speak again?

the squirrel
(on a tree I do not know)
has a brother in my land


the woodpecker –
first thing at morning –
is a master

you are out there,
somewhere, on silent feet,
wily fox


why look to the left,
the right? – impossible to say,
the simple sparrow


clothes left on the line
have been revived -
pure mountain rain

dark clouds leaving
for the next valley –
aroma of strong coffee

facing a blank page
and the snows of Farrera –
Pure Land is clear


talking literature all night
the wine in the glass
becomes still


creaking of floor boards –
reports of a war
far away

midnight –
no sound
from the horse’s bell


chilly morning
an eagle’s talon
nailed to the door


a lone lamb bleating
the sound carried
from mountain to mountain