Signs of Winter

October morning --

the mountain's blue couloirs

have already gone white

*   *   *

Tufts of ghost sage

turn to powder between my fingers:

all the words I've forgotten

Autumn Moon

I feel guilty about my failure to keep up with the seasons on this blog. I've watched the chalky summer prairies turn a dozen shades of green in the rain. I've seen that same rain bring the first snow to Blanca Peak weeks earlier than usual, then leave her brilliant green from the waist down. Phrases flicker through my mind, rarely stopping long enough to form three coherent lines. Sometimes being an observer is all I can handle. 

But as I looked back at my haiku diary today (the old-fashioned kind of diary, the one you don't show anyone), I realized that I had three haiku about the autumn moon, in different states of being. 

New moon --

over darkening fields

the white pendulum.

*   *   *

Equinox moon

transparent in a hard blue sky

at high noon.

*   *   *

Harvest moon;

the tumbleweed's brown spines

have turned magenta.