Basho Shows Up at the Pond
The old pond— 
a frog jumps in,
the sound of water.
                   -Basho (trans. by Robert Hass)

A fisherman catches an enormous bull frog
on mill creek pond.
The boy next to him, his son maybe,
holds it out for us to see.
The frog’s legs spread out 
as if it might propel itself 
through the blue summer air.
It does not seem especially panicked— 
perhaps it knows 
how the old haiku will end.
Nancy asks to hold the dangling frog.
We don’t ask her to kiss it,
as we’re all too old 
to believe in fairytales.
But we do believe in the spirit of Basho. 
Even the fisherman seems uncomfortable
keeping the frog from its old pond.
In fact, he might be counting out haiku syllables 
as the placid frog looks out
over the green water.
Except for a few ripples, 
everything is still.
The boy waits 
for the tangible world of summer 
to come back to him.
We balance on the banks  
of a Japanese wood block 
waiting for Basho to give us the signal.
And when he does,
my friend releases the frog
into the old pond.
Basho places a finger to his lips
for quiet,
and then we hear the sound of water
where the frog jumps in.





Brush Street Hawk


Every time I drive down Brush Street,
the same small hawk
sits at its station on the telephone wire
overlooking the abandoned lot 
next to the Catholic Church 
built on the bones of an old garage.
The hawk gazes out over its domain
seemingly oblivious to the nearby freeway
and the general poverty
on this side of the railroad tracks.
It is completely focused 
on small movements 
in the adjacent patch of weeds and yarrow.
The hawk doesn’t move a feather
while it gathers all its energy 
for the pursuit that will go unnoticed by drivers 
on their way to the JC Penney.
But I always look for the hawk— 
a symbol of constancy 
in the midst of boarded store fronts
and abandoned shopping carts.
And each time I see this small raptor
my heart rises a bit 
in the cage of my chest.
It is rare to witness something 
undeniably wild
in a place where even the gnarled oaks 
amid the self-storage units
look as if they’ve given up.
I know the hawk could be gone 
in a flicker.
And that would leave Brush Street 
even poorer than before.
The telephone line would be free
to lacerate the sky. 
And there would be no place
for this motorist’s eye to rest.
But for now, the hawk sits on its wire
charging the air with its vigilance.
And that is almost enough 
to redeem what’s been done.