Freestyling Jane

apple blossoms
left by a neighbour
doorstep gift

apricots
on her upper lip
traces of juice

damp earth
freeing their fragrance
storm-tossed asters

shapeless
bracken and bird’s wing
lost to the cold

nature’s gifts
fruit and blossoms
circle of life

Kim M. Russell, 18^th November 2019

My response to Carpe Diem #1782 freestyling haiku: Devouring Apricots

Today is a move away from this month’s ‘Never Change A Winning Team’ theme, with a ‘freestyle haiku challenge’ to create haiku that don’t follow the classical rules and that have as few words as possible. The goal is to ‘recreate’ given haiku as free style haiku. They have been taken from Jane Reichhold’s Dictionary of Haiku :

(spring)

light carried in my arms
apple blossoms from a neighbor
on my doorstep

(summer)

devouring apricots
the fine hairs of her mustache
moist and juicy

(autumn)

broken by the storm
the asters’ fragrance rises
out of damp earth

(winter)

rusty red the bracken
its shape lost as the cold
takes the bird’s wing

Jane Reichhold

I wasn’t sure if we had to create four new haiku or just one, so I’ve done all four and attempted a fusion-ku of all four.