I’ve been posting a haiku daily on Facebook as a poetry experiment. It’s always good to go where the readers are. The feedback has been good. This series of haiku is loosely arranged around my observations and experiences at the South Common, across the street from my home. Following are the first eight in the set.—PM

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Seen for seven years—

Jim from the housing complex

rounds the morning track.

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Chainlinked bittersweet.

Red beads in orange wrappers

make a micro Fall.

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Eliot’s gray spire

higher from the Common floor.

Room for the hungry.

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Into the freeze time

trees still rigged with water bags

lit by traffic beams.

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All kinds of plain threats

in and out of the shadows—

my spasmodic dog.

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The full empty pool—

acres of after-effects

in the open field.

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What surrounds, informs:

house, school, church, store, train, court, jail—

ambulance and hearse.

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Cold morning hotshot.

Glimpse of half-court one-on-none

through the diamond fence.

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—Paul Marion (c) 2011