Summer Rain Coming

Haiku and image by Dan Hardison
Photo: Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

Haiku appeared in Word Salad, Volume XV, No. II - Summer 2009

Mystery of the Morning

I awoke this morning
and all that was once clear,
and all that was familiar was gone -
shrouded in a veil of mystery.

Now, in the early hours of morning
a fog has descended
obscuring all that was once known
and leaving in its place mystery.

But as the hours of morning pass
the sun will gradually but assuredly
cut through the veil of mystery
and make all that was once lost
familiar again.

— Dan Hardison

Photo by Dan Hardison
Balsam Mountain Inn - Balsam, North Carolina

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The Lily

Night after night

darkness

enters the face

of the lily

which, lightly,

closes its five walls

around itself,

and its purse

of honey,

and its fragrance,

and is content

to stand there

in the garden,

not quite sleeping,

and, maybe,

saying in lily language

some small words

we can't hear

even when there is no wind

anywhere,

its lips

are so secret,

its tongue

is so hidden –

or, maybe,

it says nothing at all

but just stands there

with the patience

of vegetables

and saints

until the whole earth has turned around

and the silver moon

becomes the golden sun –

as the lily absolutely knew it would,

which is itself, isn't it,

the perfect prayer?

— Mary Oliver
From her book "Why I Wake Early"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Columbia, Tennessee

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