Eager to procrastinate this morning (this is actually most of what I do every day), I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “I bet Thoreau is full of haiku.” So I pulled Walden off the bookshelf and started looking through it and giggling. (Yes, I know: I’m easily entertained.)
I did have to use some ellipsis to get haiku out of some of Thoreau’s meaty utterances (when you’ve been reading predominantly haiku even Thoreau’s vigorous prose seems a little Victorianly verbose), but in the end I was really happy with these. I stopped looking when I got to the last one, in fact, because it was so perfect I became too happy to sit still anymore and had to get up and go for a walk. It is equal parts Thoreau-ish and haiku-ish, and also is a nice counterpart to the first one below, which was actually the first one I found.
*
gentle rain …
waters my beans …
keeps me in my house today
where a forest was cut down
last winter
another is springing up
hollow and
lichen-covered apple trees
gnawed by rabbits
the house … behind
a dense grove of red maples …
I heard the house-dog bark
the wood thrush
sang around and was heard
from shore to shore
faint hum of a mosquito …
invisible … tour …
at earliest dawn
while I drink I see
the sandy bottom …
how shallow it is
my beans ….
impatient to be hoed…
so many more than I wanted
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Red Dragonfly 
This is wonder-full. Thank you so much…..pajamas
Are you familiar with Ian Marshall’s book “Walden by Haiku”?
Pajamas — thank you! I love your work too.
Bill — No, but it sounds fascinating! What’s it about?
My son, Ian, gave me Ian Marshall’s Walden by Haiku for Fathers’ Day—he just thought it was funny that the author shared his name and combined two of my abiding obsessions. It’s really a sort of haibun and seems perfectly complementary to your approach in this blog. I’d recommend it, though your haiku from Walden are just as wonderful as his, I think.
Okay, after two recommendations I must look that book up. It sounds great.
And thanks … I really like the way these turned too. 🙂