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