The World's First Glove Haikus

My friend Richard Goodman sent me part of an e-mail he sent to a friend that included a few haikus. See what he came up with, and how he got there.

I was walking around the neighborhood today and thinking about how it was almost a really nice day. A few degrees warmer and it would have been just about perfect, crisp but not cold, sunny but not blazing. A few more weeks and I won’t need a heavy jacket. Then I thought about the gloves in my pocket and how I definitely wouldn’t need them which reminded me that I had a picture I’d been meaning to send you. I figured I should do so now before the temperature change ruined the proper context for it. So, attached to this email is a picture I took during the winter (proper winter, not the currently winding down winter which is just “near Spring”).

When I saw this poor glove on the street, I immediately thought about your odd photo theme and had to take a picture of it. Of course, I don’t mean odd in any disparaging way. I like the off-beat, unusual and provocative. My photo theme is much more pedestrian. My go-to is taking pictures through windows or doorways or taking them of windows and doorways. I think I know where that inclination comes from but no need for psychoanalysis right now. I just wanted to share this photo with you and “thank” you for creating the association of lost gloves with your glove stories theme.

If I see a random glove now, I can’t help but to think “I should take a picture of it,” and then wonder how it got there. I’ve never lost a glove so I try to imagine how it happened because the concept is foreign to me. Kind of the way I’ve always wondered how just one shoe ends up on the side of the road. Once I saw this guy and started thinking along those lines, an image popped into my head and then it turned into a poem. Well, a haiku actually.

A forgotten glove,

peeking out from the tall grass

draws your attention.

Yeah, it may be the world’s first glove haiku. But then I realized the flaw with the haiku, aside from the fact that apparently no one cares about poetry anymore- there is no grass in my photo. It’s a street glove. I had to come up with another haiku that would be more appropriate so I tried to put myself in the glove’s place and tried to imagine what it must feel, sort of the glove version of method acting.

Hand in hand no more-

misplaced or discarded.

Please come back for me.

This one didn’t work either because it seemed too depressing. Gloves don’t strike me as an inherently depressing article of clothing. Belts might be a bit sorrowful, and undershirts are made to be ignored but things like socks, scarves, hats and gloves demand attention. They ask to be noticed. They are the articles of clothing that seem to preen. Once I realized that, I had my proper haiku.

Five fingers waving.

Jaunty greetings made by hands

of leather, fuzz, fur.

Thanks to all of my haiku writers. Keep writing, and I'll keep publishing!