102 Haiku

Please accept this bouquet of haiku. I have cherry-picked (think of Japanese cherry tree blossoms) haiku I wrote over the course of a year and a half with fellow haikuists. I tried to stick to seasonal or other natural connections, aiming for some sort of discovery or revelation.

In the eighties, a personal mentor and guru with a beard like Walt Whitman's or Leo Tolstoy's "commanded" me to write haiku as a daily spiritual exercise. So I carried around a tiny red notebook that fit into my pocket. It succeeded as an awareness discipline. I did not post every day, but it broadened my horizon, sharpened my focus, opened my eyes and ears. On a business trip to Chicago, sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, I spotted a figure walking across the lobby. "Excuse me, are you James Baldwin?" It was. We shook hands. His were cold. He died months later. He was gentle and kindly. He signed his name into my little red haiku notebook. It went missing for decades, and when I found it, I was elated.

Here are my jottings, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, wedded to me or not.