suns along the Mohawk

The Mohawk River started icing-up this week, preventing the reflections that make such lovely and interesting scenes and photographs.  If you were outside the past few days along the Mohawk or around our windy Stockade neighborhood, you know it felt as cold as it looks.

Sunset brought only the most subtle coloring in the sky and on the River yesterday:

If, like myself, you’re having a hard time getting into the Holiday spirit (despite the recent arrival of snow), I hope this will help:

– the 2009 Stockade Christmas Tree –

The rousing concert given by a flock of black-capped chickadees on Monday, drew me to the western entrance of Riverside Park, and the side-yard fence of 2 Washington Ave.  Even their enthusiasm failed to ignite my holiday flame.

. . .

– black-capped chickadees give a Stockade holiday concert – 14Dec.09 –

Whether you are already in the holiday spirit or are just warming up to it, you might enjoy the “stocking stuffer” I put together two years ago called “Holiday Haiku from Schenectady” (pdf.), which has two dozen poems by three well-known haiku poets who live or work in Schenectady (Union College professors Hilary Tann and Yu Chang, and – humbly – myself).  It is formatted to be printed on two sides of a letter-size sheet and made into a tri-fold brochure. [here’s a short web address for the printable brochure:  http://tinyurl.com/SchdyXmasHaikuPDF ]  Copies were distributed around the Stockade at Christmas the past two years, with some favorable reviews.

You can find the same poems in a posting at my weblog f/k/a, by clicking here.  If you enjoy the selection from our  Schenectady haijin, there are many more holiday haiku by some of the finest English-language haiku poets at the f/k/a posting “Christmas Season Haiku.”   I’m already feeling a little more of the yuletide glow, and hope you are, too.

p.s. If you’re wondering why Yu, Hilary and I, along with the Haiku Society of America and most published English-language haiku poets, have abandoned the notion that haiku must have three lines of 5, 7 & 5 syllables, you’ll find an explanation by clicking here.