Category: Haiku

I adore the simplicity, as well as the challenge of Haiku. The constraints focus my mind, seeking out the essence of the moment, feeling, notion, distilling it to brilliant singularity.

 

Seattle’s Grown, As Have I

Carl Setzer3 Comments
Photo by Eric Hammett on Pexels.com

Ok, this is not a haiku nor a poem. I hope you can forgive the deviation from my norm. Today I read a piece by Seattle writer Angela Garbes. It resonated deeply with me, so I wanted to share with you, my friends.

Published in the Seattle Met, “As Seattle Grew, I grew Up” mirrors my own experience. I, too, spent my ‘feral 20s’ wandering Capitol Hill, where I lived the better part of 10 years of my life. Seeking the urban as a cyclist seeking a car-free life, and the vibrancy I imagined coming with concrete. Years making mostly minimum wage, yet able to survive. Gentrification just starting to squeeze. I being able to rise up the wage rungs quickly enough to stay above the flood waters of economic calamity.

My revisits come filled with memories. Oh, “this was here”, and “that was there”. Then “what WAS here”? Memories combine with memory’s absence; strange feelings, ones that I’m not quite used to.

“Cities are meant to change”. Seattle’s changed, quite a bit. Driving home how time has passed, how much older I’ve become. Things I’m not quite ready to accept, so they keep rearing up. Such is the way of things I guess.

Well, I’ll finish with a haiku: it’s what my soul wants.

these old concrete walks
echoing my youth’s footsteps
urban memories

This morning’s haiku: this age of rage

Carl Setzer

in this time of rage

invective traded like cash

poetry’s my peace

Checked Twitter this morning. So much rage. I’m not sure there’s not anyone without veins bulging nor invective dripping from their lips, a poison so sweet, so deadly. 

I’m glad I have this little garden on the internet, where I can delight in life and growth, not what’s been burned beyond recognition.