A Year on The Weir - Haiku sequence

I wrote this sequence of haiku while I was living in an hundred-year-old house located right on the river Liffey just outside Dublin city. I lived there for seven years, and it coincided with a time when I was deepening my commitment to, and practise of, haiku poetry.

It was also a place where I could see the seasons changing, along with all of the river wildlife, both of which lent themselves well to the writing of what originated as a form of nature poetry in Japan. I start in autumn and end with summer. The original sequence was longer than the one that appears here; I pruned them back to the ones which I think work best. I hope you agree :-)

A Year On The Weir


preening himself
on the full moon tide -
a mallard drake


September night
I shake out the damp sheet
- a lone swan drifting



autumn leaves falling
slowly onto the river
frosty morning



* * *


winter fog
over the river
moving with it


full moon’s reflection
dispersed in the flow
- stillness


waning moon
in the south-east sky
who moved you from the west?


* * *

wind blowing upstream
sharing good news
- high tide


through the raindrops
through the rainbow
- the other side


icy wind
geese moving quietly
- spring tide


* * *


summer hailstorm
on the window-ledge
an earwig escapes


rain easing into drizzle
two duck hens
move slowly by the island


swallows
glancing the river’s surface
- midsummer



between orange sky
and diagonal rain
- the heron