sick of winter
prayers for the end
sick of winter

Becky Smith

frozen bubbles
mid-float
in the creek

Kari Thorton

white melts
into the ground
muddy footprints

Kari Thorton

pants dragging
ends getting wet
snow melts

Olivia Birkey

frozen bubbles
mid-float
in the creek

white melts
into the ground
muddy footprints

top quarter champion

frozen bubbles
mid-float
in the creek

top half champion

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

bottom quarter champion

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

starry night
a streetlight casts light
on dancing snow

from in the car
I watch him
scraping my windows

Kari Thorton

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

Susie Wirthlin

frozen stillness
snap shot of life
a foggy lens

Tyler Lamensky

starry night
a streetlight casts light
on dancing snow

Jade Anderson

top half champion

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

champion

warm breath
fogs up the window
a heart appears

bottom half champion

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

blinding fog
driving even slower
through the procession

Olivia Birkey

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

Aubrie Cox

fog
the ghost
of a snowman

Nathan Bettenhausen

frozen footsteps
on sidewalk snow
ghosts of traffic

Jade Anderson

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

frozen footsteps
on sidewalk snow
ghosts of traffic

top quarter champion

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

bottom half champion

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

bottom quarter champion

melting snow
I go back
for my cross

melting snow
I go back
for my cross

sunlit face
and icy breath
what a tease

melting snow
I go back
for my cross

Aubrie Cox

knee high snow
i slip down the slop
onto ice

Kari Thorton

sunlit face
and icy breath
what a tease

Susie Wirthlin

dreaming
ice melts onto my face
summer

Becky Smith

fog
the ghost
of a snowman

graveyard silence
barn owl floats
on the fog

fog
the ghost
of a snowman

frozen footsteps
on sidewalk snow
ghosts of traffic

I really like this pair because both have that "other world" feel with the fog in a cemetery. Everything is in slow motion and there is a feeling that everthing is ephemeral—temporarily here. I like the way that the "ghost of a snowman" is both literally going up into fog, but also how it recalls the noisy past of childreen playing in the snow. It is a quiet memory of when the snowman was in a sunny, vibrant existance. And the graveyard silence speaks of ancestors who have passed on into the silence in the same way. Yet this too is a place of life and survivors—the owl silently floating over the graveyard to a leafless tree. In both haiku the fog is very heavy and real yet also cold and evocative. It holds things up and will soon pass. Dr. Brooks

Individually, as well as together, these haiku exhibit a strong sense of absence and emptiness. The way that the fog either creates merely an outline of the snowman, or perhaps all that is left, quite literally, of the snowman, complements the signs of human life on the sidewalk. I can also here the faint sounds of cars, and maybe see hazy red taillights. Together, the haiku amplify the duality of the absence as well as physical evidence of life once being there. Aubrie