Sedona Lit: Cactus Haikus

Sedona Lit is a series by Dr. Elizabeth Oakes, an award winning poet and former Shakespeare professor. A Sedonian of three years, she will highlight the literature, written or performed, of Sedona, past and present.

By Elizabeth Oakes
(June 13, 2016)

Here we are again – in a Sedona summer, when those weaponized plants, the cacti, split open with color so saturated it seems to be swarming around them, like the bees, as well as coming from them.

It’s the season for poets and photographers too. I sent out a call to Sedona and environs, and they answered. Here are twelve haikus, all hot-off-the-press written for this column, and four photographs for a Sedona.Biz convocation and celebration of cacti and creativity:

Overnight Cactus flowers appear
Fragile beauties in the heat
For a moment a yellow dream
(Victoria Nelson, artist)

A saguaro’s crown—
No blossoms, only sighs
New from the other world.
Alberto Rios (Arizona Poet Laureate)

On one day each spring
exotic blooms burst and die
on patient cacti
(Mary Heyborne, writer)

Cacti like Women
Beautiful Nature Today
Dangerous Tomorrow
(Nicholas Kirsten Honshin, artist)

purple cholla buds
host bobbing black beetles,
pollination partners
(Gary Every, writer)

Desert blossoms wave –
fluorescent colors swim in
tentacles of thorn
(Elizabeth Oakes, columnist)

Glochids on my lips,
Buried deep in grimaces.
I kiss the cactus.
Eric Vaughn Holowacz (cultural engineer)

gold white scarlet burst
from cacti’s liquid cores in
sexual laughter
Cat Anderson (writer-editor)

fox tails thriving
among the prickly pear –
sanctuary seekers
Bill Ward (writer)

Laughs from clowns and gifts
Tawa pulse of sun and peace
At Hopi dances
(Andrea Houchard, philosopher)

Saguaro arms bent
Morning dew shines on sharp pines
The day is brighter
Kathy Mackey (photographer)

Softness sits on hooks
Like memories in my heart.
See, but do not hold.
Kate Hawkes (theatre professional)

To the poets and photographers: thanks ever for sharing your creativity! To the readers: please feel free to add a cacti haiku of your own in the comments section below!

I’ll be doing a column on Monsoon Poetry, so when you see the clouds gathering, grab your pen or laptop and watch for my call. Only requirements will be that it be five lines or less and that it be about the Sedona monsoon (not, say, just rain in general). Remember, you don’t need to be a professional writer, just a Sedonian or an Arizonian!