coyotes yipping
desert winds erase all tracks
an elf owl calls--why
I don't normally like to use a center margin with my poems. It seems a little too easy. But in this haiku I felt the need to use it to represent the centering, or pulling toward the center of all beings--we are all related. Each thing we do has an effect upon all others. I thought I could use the center margin to help show this.
This poem was fun because I had to do a little research. We're having a bit of wind tonight, so the yipping voices of the coyote are carrying across the canyon. I have been reading the GAURDIANS OF GA'HOOLE by Katherine Laski, and I knew I wanted to include an owl watching the coyotes from his burrow in a Saguaro. I had originally used the traditional owl sound who as the last word of this poem. But when I looked the bird up in my PETERSON FIELD GUIDES, Western Birds, text and illustrations by Roger Tory Peterson; the listing for the elf owl, Micrathene whitneyi, says the voice is "A rapid, high pitched whi- whi-whi-whi...often becoming more yipping or 'puppy-like,'" (Wow, I didn't think I'd ever have use for that single quote followed by the double quote, but there it is.) So then I knew I had the bird I had heard and the one I wanted in this poem and I had to change the who to the why which makes the poem so much richer in conveying the meaning I wanted with this poem. Oh, this was fun.
This poem includes the word "tracks" which is the challenge word for this month at children's poet David L. Harrison's blog. So I will post this poem over there too. If you write your own poem, Harrison has a monthly challenge for adults and two categories for children. The children poems are at http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/young-poets-word-of-the-month-poems/
and the adult poems are at http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/adult-word-of-the-month-poem/
So here is the writing exercise for today, write your own haiku, or a poem about "tracks." Share your poem with me in the comments below or post it on Harrison's blog.
Thank you for stopping by.
Thank you for stopping by.
Joy, you are so good about accepting a challenge. Haiku agrees with you. You should write more of it.
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