pull of the moon

 I made it into Mayfly!  This was a goal of mine.  Mayfly comes out twice a year and contains only 15 haiku per issue.  Each haiku is on a page by itself with plenty of white space around it.  I think this adds to the haiku experience of reading a haiku slowly and deliberately, letting it unfold line by line.  Also, I met Randy and Shirley Brooks, the editors, at the 2019 Haiku North America Conference in Winston Salem, NC, and they are very kind and authentic people.  

pull of the moon

the ocean deep

inside her

There's so much I could say about this haiku.  I wrote it from a prompt given by my haiku friend Tia Haynes to write about water.  This haiku just sort of popped into my head.  I think about this idea when I practice Qigong and do the push wave movement.  I imagine all of the fluids in my body flowing in sync with the waves on the beach--rushing up onto the sand and receding back into the ocean.  This ebb and flow.  I also think about amniotic fluid, a little microcosm of the ocean where we all get our start.  When my second son, Daniel, was a few days past his due date, I went out and stood under the full moon, hoping that labor would start.  It didn't, but I enjoyed moon bathing with my big round moon of a belly.

There is something so huge and powerful about the ocean at night.  One evening when we were at the beach and I was feeling anxious about something (can't remember what it was), I went out onto the deck and sat in the dark, watching the big silver moon reflected on the inky black waves.  Within seconds, my anxiety was just gone.  Sometimes when I'm feeling anxious now I can go back to that moment in my memory--watching myself watch the moon on the waves--and I feel that same sense of calm.  The power of awe.