Roberta loves bells. One year, Paul gives her a bell with holly painted on it. Noritake bone china, limited edition. It is part of a set that continues the following year with the Twelve Days of Christmas. Each bell is styled after one of the counted verses. Some years, he slips a tiny card in the box: To Roberta, Merry Christmas, With Love, From Paul. A couple times he is late. The 1982 bell is Eleven Pipers Piping, and has to be special ordered on February 24, 1983. It is on layaway until Paul purchases it on May 25 for $33.39 plus tax.

thirteen years
to collect the chorus
cicada song

After Roberta dies, Paul gives the bells to me. In a large family, you have to do that sort of thing, especially if you want to make sure your granddaughter inherits something special.

packed away
until the following season
pear blossoms

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. She serves as a panelist in The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Books Award (2021-present) and is a judge in the biennial 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).