Robert Demaree- Haiku

FROM A HAIKU JOURNAL

Louisiana

Louisiana:

Rice, cotton; dark, still bayous:

Vulnerable land.

Mardi Gras at dawn

On St. Charles Avenue:

Ladders await Rex.

Lakefront restaurant,

Newspaper on the table:

Peeling crawfish.

Hurricane warning,

The Archbishop offers prayer:

Long night in a shelter.

Where our girls grew up.

Left part of myself down there,

That haunted country.

Sports Page

At Briggs Stadium,

Older white guys in felt hats:

Tigers baseball game.

A clandestine game:

Blacks and whites on the same court:

Nineteen forty-four.

NCAA hoops:

Our sentimental impulse:

Pull for the lower seed.

Two ranked lacrosse teams:

Northern boys come south to play:

Duke wins in OT.

Aging

Searched the Internet,

As people our age will do:

Old colleague, since died.

Bought a polo shirt

At the estate sale; sadly,

Knew the provenance.

One day someone else

Will come to Golden Pines who

Plays the dulcimer.

Robert Demaree is the author of three book-length collections, including After Labor Day (2014) published by Beech River Books. He presents poetry readings, seminars and workshops in North Carolina (October through June) and New England (June through October). Next programs: Twin Lakes Poetry Festival, Burlington, N.C., May 4 and 11; Effingham Library Poetry Seminar, Effingham, N.H., June 25. The Haiku Journal is a project to write one haiku or senyru each day for a year.