These are the people in my neighborhood

What a wonderful idea, looking, really looking, at the people around you. Great haiku prompt this week at http://onedeepbreath.com

Once I get started writing haiku, I just want to go on and on, trying to capture the very heart of something in those tricky syllable sentences. 5 - 7 - 5.

I remember walking through the streets of Philadelphia one hot summer night, making up calming breath haiku with a really cool dude I once knew. Calming breath, in for 5, hold for 3, out for 7, or something like that. Like the way you're supposed to breathe to reduce stress, to relax. You know, as I mentioned in an earlier set of haiku, the breathing thing I'm so bad at.

Ah, memories. Breathing and rhyming and making up words with a handsome stranger in a foreign city. Well, foreign to me, anyway. But that was ages ago, in another life. What follows are the people in my life today, at least the people I observed today. Thanks for reading!


Sad girl in drive-thru.
Black rivers of shining hair
begs compliment; smile.

Mother, baby, hip.
As attached by rain as cloth.
Sweat is loving close.

Baby in new shoes.
Brother stretches just to there,
hard sneaker goes here.

In rain we all melt;
puddles of neighbors on grass,
so good to see you!

Sad creeps into eyes,
settles in for lengthy stay.
Dig deep, tear roots, plant.

I called my lawyer.
Overheard in WalMart aisle,
shopping for despair.