Ramble with Storm: Poetic license

Mulling things on my morning ramble

with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab

Maybe it was a note by Norm Minas last week where he mentioned seeing the first green berries of raspberries.

I was kinda ticked at myself, because I take pride in noticing the change in that sort of thing. My daughter Sara even noticed the first berries forming on our little patch of raspberries in the backyard on Sunday.

On Monday, I spotted the first green berries formed on the many bushes along the normal route for my rambles with the meathead. Don’t know whether I missed them because I was mulling things or they had just formed.

Tuesday morning, while looking at the berries, I noticed the blue spiderwort open in the early light and a yellow flower by the railroad tracks I couldn’t identify.

I looked through Illinois prairie plants and spring wild flowers, and can’t figure it out. It is a butter-cup sort of yellow throughout, but the flower is very similar in shape and size to black-eyed Susans.

It is good to find things on the way to looking for other things.

And a haiku came to me.

Cottonwood fluff floats

Spiderwort blues, raspberries green

Bluegills bed again

Maybe writing the haiku was just a way to avoid getting down to work on my busiest day on Tuesdays.

I like the first and last lines together. In part because I think there is a natural connection, same as lilacs blooming and smallmouth spawning or white bass running has a natural connection.

Wednesday, I tried tweaking an alternate middle line

Cottonwood fluff floats

Bullfrogs croak, honeysuckle browns

Bluegills bed again

Yes, the bullfrogs are starting on the town pond.

Last night, a freak thunderstorm blew up right over town and dumped 1.25 inches in a matter of minutes.

This morning, I had hoped to come up with another middle line or two, maybe something about red-winged blackbirds trilling. But the storm matted the vegetation down and across the old rail path above the town pond.

It’s hard to mull things when you have the more immediate concern of where to put your next step.

No new haiku.