two rain haiku

winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) on my University's campus

haiku #1

FAITH

Faith is aconite

rising in February

warm in the snow bed

-Ruth M.

Normally aconite would rise in snow in February. This week it rose in rain, which I photographed, above. I wrote the haiku several years ago, when there was snow on the ground. I would not have known about aconite if it weren't for the composition professor whose office was next to mine. Professor Ellison provided expert and generous help with my writing assignments while I completed a BA in English part time. One snowy February day, he poked his bright face that defied gravity's wrinkles through my door and asked if I had seen the aconite blooming over by the river yet? "Aconite?" said I, clueless. "What's that?"

When I found out what it was, and saw it, I wrote this haiku. It's a simple poem, but the concept of a flower blooming in February in Michigan is profound.

Aconite is part of the buttercup family. Buttercup is a much more pleasant and fitting word than aconite - IMHO.

haiku #2

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

-Ezra Pound

Writing his imagist haiku-like poem, Ezra Pound whittled thirty lines down to 14 words. He wrote it after being deeply moved by the beauty of faces in a crowd at the Paris Métro station La Concorde. "In a Station of the Metro" was one of the first poems I studied in poetry class. Now when I see black tree limbs in the rain, Mr. Pound's image comes to mind, then the words. This tree, below, is my favorite beech here on campus. The photo above is our spirea bush at home.