In a richly imagistic, one-line haiku, British poet Tim Gardiner pays tribute to an amazing woman born in his native Norfolk, England.

 

comma butterfly on her windowpane fresh diary entry

For Margaret Fountaine, Victorian lepidopterist and diarist, born in Norwich.

How clever it is that a comma can fly from a page of this lepidopterist’s diary and, transformed into the ruggedly beautiful comma butterfly, light on a windowpane. Read the butterfly as the symbol of the emerging woman, and you have a haiku that is at once profound and delightful.

Dr Tim Gardiner is an ecologist, poet and children’s author from Manningtree in Essex, UK. His haiku have been published in literary magazines including Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and The Heron’s Nest. His first collection of haiku, On the Edge, was published in 2017. Tim’s debut children’s book, The Voyage of the Queen Bee, was  published by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2016.