Poetry for everyone: Weybridge haiku contest winners

Weybridge’s Sixth Annual Haiku Contest asked Vermonters to reflect on these challenging times. Reflect they did with 51 writers submitting 443 haikus. As in past contests, the themes ranged widely — despair over fickle weather, the challenges in growing old, the perils of climate change, the beauty of Vermont in all seasons.

Eyes closed at first,/ wintering inside the earth,/ black matted fur/ dampness pressing soft eyelids/ shut to outlast frost/ heaving around him.

The state suggests I bring in my bird/ feeders./ If I don’t want to find myself/ staring into two dark eyes./ If I have enough courage./ To step onto my porch./With my bugle. My flag.

This week’s featured poet, Tatum Raphael of Vergennes, writes about a climber drawing from an inner well of strength to scale the height of an icy cliff face and experience the pride of planting a flag.

a light sparkles/ a tiny diamond/ from a house/ across the river/ through winter woods/ the other side of town…

‏I was driving through the fields of Heaven when I realized I was still on Earth,
because Earth was all I had ever known of Heaven and no other place would do
for living forever.

No one could say who they were./ The men at the perimeter./ Why they appeared in uniforms./ Seemed to be wearing badges/ stitched into their shirts./ At this distance five-pointed stars.

Most of the time the dark waters will rise,/ then fall into sun and birdsong, everything/ glistening, vivid as broken glass in fresh mud…

The Rose of Sharon/ and the Trumpet Vine/ are always the last to leaf out./ Everything else is green —/ has been since the end of April.

For Peter Lebenbaum and his long service with the Counseling Service of Addison County.

It was twilight all day./ Sometimes the smallest things weigh us down,/ small stones that we can’t help/ admiring and palming.

A Poet, In a Field Near Robert Frost’s Cabin, Lifts Enormous Boulders with his Mind

All that is beautiful/ that slips away––/ a December night/ that before was November/ and September and before that,/ July when days were blue silver/ waves we swam through.

The storm before Christmas and all through the house/ No appliance was whirring, not even a mouse

There’s something to be said for banality,/ the way it keeps everything on a level plane,/ one cliché blithely following another/ like cows heading toward the pasture.