Haiku by Tricia Knoll

taxes and haiku
glut of paper
on a very old table

***
A unique haiku–possibly one of the few to deal with taxes! But “taxes and haiku” both speak of imperatives–one practical and one expressive. As a human being, the poet has to deal with both. The reader can easily see the papers scattered about, perhaps even inter-mixing. I like to think of the poet switching from one to the other–if the haiku isn’t working, a break to focus on numbers. The last line, to me, makes the haiku. It’s time honored to do certain work not at a desk but at a kitchen table. That “very old” table implies a patina of time and use. Maybe it is in a study, but I see it more in the middle of the life of a household.
As tax deadlines approach, I’ll think of this. The deadlines for haiku are just as they ask to be written.