Tethered. The kite tugs until I cut the string.

stretching

Freedom is a cut. Many cuts.

through

Cycles of strings regenerate until they, too, demand to be severed.

the atrophy

It’s quite a thing.

of wonder

To be wrapped with drowning. To release what survives the net.

the river

But if these decades haven’t unloaded what cannot be carried, I still bear the weight.

of heaven

My thoughts more restraining than strings.

Kat Lehmann

is a haiku poet, a potter, and a scientist based in Connecticut, USA. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has been honored in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Awards (individual poem), the Haiku Society of America Harold G. Henderson Haiku Award, and Japan’s Basho-an Award.

Kat is a Founding Co-Editor of Whiptail: Journal of the Single-Line Poem and an Associate Editor at Sonic Boom. She serves as a panelist in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Books Award (2021-present) and is a judge in the annual Trailblazer Contest. Her third book, Stumbling Toward Happiness, shares her notes of self-exploration.

Kat’s work, including her experimental “sudo-ku” multi-haiku form, can be read at her website: https://katlehmann.weebly.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Sensory Revelation Tank, haibun by Kat Lehmann which was nominated by MacQ for the Red Moon Anthologies, and selected for publication in Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022).