My Garden is Your Garden

Welcome to Haiku Garden— a place to ponder some of poetry's littlest ditties, planted with love for our reading pleasure.  This is not just my garden, it is a community garden.  If you would like to take part in this new and recurring feature on Today's Little Ditty, please contact me at michelle (at) MichelleHBarnes (dot) com, or by commenting below.  I happen to know that there are many wonderful poets reading this blog post who excel in Japanese short form (haiku, senryu, haiga...). Please join me!  Or maybe you don't typically write in this form, but would like to try your hand at it just for fun.  Please join me!  Here, it's all ditties and it's all good.  Haiku Garden will only grow as beautiful as the community that gathers to appreciate it, and I look forward to featuring you and your blog!

In the meantime, today's little ditty was inspired by a memory that I've kept close to my heart for the past seven plus years.  It was January, summertime in Sydney, Australia, and the beginning of the school year.  My 5 year old was starting Kindergarten.  Each morning, we walked up a steep hill on a street lined with Frangipani trees to get to his school.  Along the way, he liked to collect the best blossoms from those that had fallen to the ground-- his daily ritual which I accommodated as best I could without being late for the morning bell.

Frangipani

Cradled in his hands

like newborn chicks, Here Mummy,

keep these forever?

© 2013 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes.  All rights reserved.

Hungry for more?  Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday roundup at Writing the World for Kids.  See you there!