For the time being, well past noon, God, I ask that you above all leave me alone, that I might just sit here in the leaf shade, beside the wall with its swallow-thrown shadows and the easy, unmended thoughts time affords me: these solid forms of pots, flush with zinnias, and the sun patch fading where the grass snake glides unknotted.

a hollow tree
the beginning
of dusk

— Previously published in Anthology of Days (Backwoods Broadsides, No. 70, 2002); reprinted by author’s permission

Michael McClintock

Resides in Clovis, California, with his wife, Karen, where he writes short form poetry (haiku, tanka, sigo), prose poetry (haibun), essays, and reviews. His column “Tanka Café” has appeared in Ribbons: Journal of the Tanka Society of America since 2001. A selection of his poetry appears in Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, ed. by Jim Kacian, et al (W. W. Norton, 2014) and Where the River Goes: The Nature Tradition in English Language Haiku, ed. by Allan Burns (United Kingdom: Snapshot Press, 2014).

michaelmcclintock.homestead.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Unnatural Amber, an 889-word haibun (including five haiku) in Haibun Today (Volume 5, Number 3, September 2011)

⚡ The Importance of Goldfish, Haibun Today (Volume 5, Number 3, September 2011)

⚡ Wheeling Through the Cedars: An Interview with Michael McClintock by Jeffrey Woodward in Haibun Today (Volume 5, Number 3, September 2011)

⚡ A Review of Meals at Midnight by Robert D. Wilson, Co-Editor of Simply Haiku (Spring 2009)

⚡ Mazatlán in July, haibun that runs just over a thousand words (+12), in Haibun Today (1 September 2008)