“haiku house”
waits at woods edge
my trickster mind
enters the silence 
empty in the rain dark

I feel her ghost
heart…beats
until I whisper
“hello the house”
and she’s gone

her portrait on the wall 
wearing the dead-
hummingbird necklace 
hollow as her eyes
first thing I see

not expecting the ghost but
she’s left me alone
voice of the creek sounding 
like rain or a river
singing to shooting stars 

Plumb Branch, North Carolina