Pre-radiation Haiku

I, too, have cancer

Part of me is unaffected

Part of me is terrified

Jedermann's comment: Everyone's heading toward peace

Reefs blanch in the Anthropocene

Skeletal gardens

Small fry have nowhere to go

Jedermann's comment: Have-nots will be the first to drown

Haves party till haves sink

An ancient wall

Open hands

No fists

Jedermann's comment: Open hands are universal

All fists are local

Water stridor

Wrinkles the face of a pond

Box turtle stares

Jedermann's comment: Pond doesn't care

Nature's Seurats:

Age spots, freckles,

Stippled trout

Jedermann's comment: Cancer cells, too

Two ancient skulls

One 45,000 years old

One 76

Jedermann's comment: Both are mine 

Spots on a boulder

Split by an oak

The moss spreads

Jedermann's comment: Zeno was wrong

Everything moves

Slow as lichen

Fast as mushrooms

Waiting for Death

Jedermann's comment: cummings was right

death is bad

Death is good