I love games, from dominoes to cards to Pictionary. When we were kids, my cousins and I spent a zillion summer hours playing Kick-the-Can, Sardines, Spoons and — my ultimate favorite — Hearts. I remember a particular vacation with my in-laws completely dominated by an intensely competitive Spite-and-Malice bracket. And even now, my husband and I almost always keep up a running gin tournament while traveling.
I’m not saying I’m a professional or anything, but I’ve had practice and I like to think that I usually get the rules and the strategies and… the point. Well, y’all? Last night, I began the process of learning Mahjong, and I Am Humbled. The sweet, patient woman teaching us kept saying things like, “It’s ok if you don’t understand this yet” and … um… thank you!
Still, by the end of the night I could imagine how a person might get good and hooked. Not saying that I am or will be, but the beauty of the tiles, the movement around the table, the building of a perfectly prescribed line? Definitely worth another night of it, at least.
Haiku 9
April 9, 2025
Tiles clack like birds
wing-to-wing along a wall
singing krak, dot, bam
A year or so ago, my pal Marla started sharing the sweetest, brightest #minibouquets in her Instagram stories.
They struck a chord. Other people started sharing theirs and tagging her. (Including me.) But then an election happened. And winter came. Hurricanes and fires. Book bans, logging on public lands, measles outbreaks, deportations, tariffs. Overwhelm is understandable.
And yet… And still…
Spring.
Haiku 8
April 8, 2025
Pistils, petals, stems
Darlings at the dance dip, curtsy
And say yes again
Before I say what I’m going to say: Yes, I know that wild turkeys live in central Texas. I have google. But y’all? I have never seen one here. And more importantly, I’ve never seen one marching around my house into my own backyard. But today I did.
This is what qualifies as a high point in my book. I was going to say “these days,” but honestly, seeing a wild turkey, curious but nonchalant, making her way into my backyard to see what’s what is just good news full stop. Don’t you think?
P.S. I don’t want to get all woo woo conspiracy theory here, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that she arrived with the specific intention of being featured in an April haiku.
Haiku 7
April 7, 2025
I track her, agog
Turkey in her high pink boots
Like she owns the place
44 degrees may not sound chilly to you, but in Austin, in April, it is indeed chilly. It’s a welcome chill, the last chance we’ve got to wear jeans and a sweater, to wrap hands around mugs, and make a giant pot of soup.
Summer’s coming. But for now? This.
Haiku 6
April 6, 2025
Unseasonable
Morning glories stay wrapped tight
Our blanket is wool
This morning, my friend Lara and I went bird watching with the good folks from the Travis County Audubon Society. The first bird we saw (um, make that heard) was a red-shouldered hawk, with its insistent, shrieking call.
This afternoon, I joined thousands of my friends up at the Texas State Capital. We carried signs and kicked up a fuss and made our presence known as best and beautifully as we could.
Haiku 5
April 5, 2025
Like red shouldered hawks
We cry out, sound the alarm
Claim territory
I love an indoor-outdoor kind of house. I love open windows, and sitting on the back deck to write. I love looking at the owl box from my living room, and bringing in stones and seed pods to set on the sills.
Sometimes someone takes it too far, like when a raccoon and two babies came in through the dog door or when rain swells the threshold or a bird builds a nest in my husband’s bike helmet. Or, today, the coriander-scented visitor creeping across our bedroom floor.
Haiku 4
April 4, 2025
A leaf? Bit of bark? Stink bug vibrates in reply He’ll show himself out
Gosh, y’all. There is so much going wrong in our world. It’s hard to stand. It’s hard to fathom. Sometimes, it’s almost hard to breathe.
Today, though, I lucked into a really good day. I spent it surrounded by librarians, and honestly, whose days don’t librarians make? They are miracle matchmakers. Heroic helpers. Great-hearted guides. (In case anyone is either drunk or confused, librarians are the good guys. I’m looking at you, Texas Leg.)
Anyway, thanks to the Texas Library Association for helping lift the cloud cover for just a bit. I plan to do what I can to carry little glimmers of light going forward.
(If you’re just hopping on, this is day 2/30 of my National Poetry Month celebration wherein I write a haiku each day… and invite you to join me in writing 1 or 5 or 30 of your own! More details in yesterday’s post…)
I drove from Austin to Dallas today, for the annual Texas Library Association conference. This entails braving I-35 for several hours, something only the brave or foolish would ever do, voluntarily at least. But the thing that makes this concrete chaos worth it (besides the approximately gazillion brilliant and committed librarians I’m going to get to say hi to and bow down to tomorrow) is what we know around these parts as Ladybird’s Legacy. You kind of have to see it to believe it, really.
Haiku 2
April 2, 2025
Riot of hatchlings
Spread wings, burst into song
Highway bluebonnets
Welcome to my 16th year of celebrating National Poetry Month by writing a haiku-a-day. (Maybe, for you, it’s just year one. Great! Welcome! Join me!)
What are the rules? Well, a haiku is a three-lined unrhymed Japanese poetic form. The westernized version counts syllables (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) and I tend to use that in my practice but it’s not mandatory. Traditionally, haiku feature the natural world, refer (overtly or obliquely) to a season, and make a turn in tone, theme, or perspective after the 2nd line. Sometimes I’m very attendant to these rules, sometimes I play fast and loose; you should do with them what you may.
I used to have an incredible haiku community on twitter, back before the takeover. Our poemy clan feels dispersed now, so I’ll just share all over the place (Substack, Instagram, Facebook, Blog, Bluesky) and see what hits. Feel free to share yours too, in response to my posts or at your own place, in your own way. If you use these tags, I’ll try to find and read them!
More discussion about this practice over the next few days but it’s nearly bedtime (I don’t have nearly the staying power of Cory Booker!) so without further ado…
Haiku 1
April 1, 2025
Inside a cabbage an etching of an old oak plants a seed in me
Years and years ago, I saw Lucille Clifton read her work in a little sunstruck chapel on a Sunday morning. I was in awe, and too shy to speak, when everyone rushed up afterwards. I wish I’d been brave enough to praise her in a thousand languages, but she’s gone now. So, what I can do — what we can do — is lift up her poetry (elegant, human, perfectly wry) forever.
This month, my poetry sisters and I used Clifton’s notes to clark kentas our inspiration. I used the prompt loosely, and rather than trying to actually imitate her voice or style (she’s inimitable, IMHO) I just took the form — the notes — which (bonus!) suit our overaching theme this year of being in conversation.
Mine are written to just a few of the many Elizabeths in the world, real or fictional. These aren’t notes of praise or anger so much as trying to know, to understand, to see what we share, if anything, beyond the nine letters of our name.
Notes to the Other Elizabeths
By Liz Garton Scanlon
Bennet
A name pressed plain with pride but easily shortened, brightened, made less conventional and more delightful
which suited you, Lizzy, taking turn after turn around the garden, more prickly poppy than hedgerow more opinion than obedience more desire than decorum
that ought be dismissed, with prejudice
Jennings Graham
A name so committed to justice that you tied your bonnet tightly, smoothed your skirts, settled a book on your lap
and you stayed seated, you resisted, asserted your right to ride
you saved a seat for Rosa you saved so many seats
Cady Stanton
A name with gravitas and authority, a syllabic structure not to be ignored
you used it as resolute ramrod and radical blast, determined to push things through and open things up, to secure podium and public square, to swap bible for ballot box to speak for women
but just for women just like you
Taylor
A name straight-spined and headstrong, centered on a saddle (or at least that’s how it started) then it was off to the races
your eyes, they said, your jewels they said, your beauty, your promise your great, great loves
everything they said becoming, like your name, inescapable
QEII
A name so regal you bore it heavy on your head your whole life long, it was with you always in your handbag in the pockets of your smart tweed coat trailing you like a low-to-the-ground rump-heavy dog
that’s the only part of any of it that made you laugh
QEII
They said you were second but really, there were so many others before and after you
***ALSO, HEY, would you like to write with us in April? It’s easy! We’re writing ekphrastic poems based on vintage photographs. Do with that what you may.***
