Wind (a haiku revisited)

Drifts of winter doves--

Frayed shreds of ribbon, edges

pulled thin by dim sky.

                        -JM 2010

Speaking of process...  I thought I was done with this poem when I posted it last week, but the more I looked at it, the more it seemed unfinished.  I decided I liked an older version better, but still not enough to let it go.  So, I spent some time reworking the first line on Friday, and this was the end result.  I like this version the best.  I think I'll keep it.

Wind (a haiku)

A slow drift of doves--

frayed shreds of ribbon, edges

pulled thin by dim sky.

Photo courtesy of Flowery *L*u*z*a*

I wanted to post this poem written in my own hand, but my scanner wouldn't work, so I find myself typing. 

I've been thinking a lot about process.  I'd really like to incorporate as much of my process as I can into this blog, and this poem seemed like the best place to start since its roots go back eleven years.  It came out of a seed of a poem that I wrote my freshman year of college:

I saw a stream of doves drift by,

a silver silk scarf, on the wind against the sky.

I liked the idea, but not the form, and it lay tucked away in one of my notebooks for years.  I recently rediscovered it, and started toying with it, hoping to harvest a haiku from it.  These are the drafts (if you're not interested in process, stop reading now):

Streams of doves drift by,

silver silk ribbons, wind-tossed

against a dim sky.

Streams of doves drift by,

shreds of ribbon tossed by hand [handfuls]

                         [fraying out/frayed edges]

against dusty sky. 

[dissolved by dim sky]

A drift of doves streams,

A shred of ribbon, frayed edges

Pulled thin by dim sky.

A drift of doves streams-- 

frayed shreds [streaks] of ribbon, edges

pulled thin by dim sky.

Slowly the doves drift,

frayed shreds of ribbon, edges

pulled thin by dim sky.

In the future I hope to post scans of typed copies of my poems, followed by scans of the drafts/notes that led up to the poem.  I have to get a new ribbon for my typewriter, though, and apparently a new scanner.  Until then, I'll just by typing them here.  It's easier, that's for sure.