Tom Painting

Tom Painting teaches junior high at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2000, his students have had winning haiku in the Nicholas Virgilio Memorial Haiku Contest. Tom’s own haiku have appeared annually since 1998 in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku, published by Red Moon Press. He has received recognition in the Haiku Society of America’s Brady and Henderson contests for haiku and senryu, and in its haibun contest. His work has also appeared in Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years and Baseball Haiku: The Best Haiku Ever Written About the Game, each published by W. W. Norton. Tom is an avid birder and enjoys hiking in out-of-the-way places. The following is a selection of Tom’s haiku.

ending

in wildflowers . . .

the logging road

                                                                                 his death

                                                                                 added to her litany

                                                                                 of complaints

family feud

the pallbearers

take sides

                                                                                 summit road

                                                                                 once more the moon

                                                                                 changes windows

solicitation

the wildlife activist

flashes her teeth

                                                                                deeper

                                                                                into the backcountry

                                                                                a spit of asphalt

family plot

the gravedigger

severs a root

                                                                                spring plowing

                                                                                a flock of blackbirds

                                                                                turns inside out

nursing home

a stranger turns

my father

                                                                                my tongue

                                                                                explores a worn tooth

                                                                                the snowy hills

crickets

the pulse in a hollow

of her neck

                                                                                divorced

                                                                                he finishes

                                                                                his sentence

peace rally

a forgotten scar

starts to itch

                                                                                nursing home

                                                                                my father

                                                                                the way I left him

deep winter

I search the lease

for a loophole

                                                                                midday blues

                                                                                a row of icicles

                                                                                taking shape

big sky

the uncertain legs

of the foal

                                                                                separate stops

                                                                                off the interstate

                                                                                my parents’ graves

after hours

the grief counselor

loosens his tie

                                                                                first crocus

                                                                                I make a promise

                                                                                I can’t keep

hospice

my father slips out

of the conversation

                                                                                fall planting

                                                                                the way my father

                                                                                set them straight

year’s end

the weight of pennies

in the mason jar

                                                                                peace vigil

                                                                                one candle

                                                                                lights them all

year’s end

I give the graveyard

a passing glance

                                                                                forsythia

                                                                                I forget the rest

                                                                                of the story

muscle memory

the weight

of a casket