CHICAGO, SUMMER 2007: SKETCHES
1.
Trailing its long ribbon, a mylar balloon sails from a small park in front of the hospital, giddily dancing over the traffic lights and down the street, morning sun flashes on its lettering. No one chasing it. Did it get away too quickly, or did they want the world to know, 'IT'S A BOY!'
cotton clouds
in a baby blue sky–
some white some gray
2.
A family returning from the park, the mother pushing a stroller while the grandmother shepherds with two older children whose feet are dragging. She begins to sing
'I know an old lady who swallowed a fly….'
By stanza two she's coaxed the children into joining. Initially their phrasing is in a storytelling mode that I know from an old Burl Ives recording, but by stanza four the beat has kicked in. They're all marching down the sidewalk, arms swinging in unison.
I don't want to walk that fast, so I have to concentrate on a counterpoint until they're out of hearing.
tree lined street
rhythms of wind
through the leaves
3.
A raised bed of kitchen herbs fronting a duplex unit near the end of the street. Near the gate is the gardener, wearing a straw hat and T-shirt pulled over his middle-aged paunch. He's in animated conversation with other visitors so we slide in and look around by ourselves.
Many of the yards on the Garden Tour look as if they've been created by landscape architects for a photo shoot. Not this one–it's been here long enough for the bees and butterflies to know about it.
green gloves
on a flagstone wall–
the smell of dill
• Linda Papanicolaou is an art historian and art teacher living in the Bay Area of Northern California. Her interest in poetry began when she taught an art lesson that included haiku and discovered that she really had to improve her own writing to be able to teach it. Since then haiku and haiga have become her favorite media of artistic expression. She is the editor of Haigaonline and assistant director of WHChaikumultimedia. Her art and poetry have appeared in Amaze, Autumn Leaves, Contemporary Haibun Online, Fire Pearls, Frog Pond, Geppo, Heron's Nest, Haigaonline, Lynx, Mariposa, Moonset, Nisqually Delta Review, Ribbons, Santa Fe Broadside, Simply Haiku, Soundings, Temps Libres and WHC World Kigo Project and World Haiku Review.
