Ripe Apples and Pears
(Rhön, September)

*

Ripe apples and pears,
plenty, between the pebbles
in the nimble stream.

*

The forest, still green,
whispers and rustles and taps
with dropping acorns.

*

The gilded beech-tree
stretches out one long arm
towards the morning sun.

*

Christina Egan © 2013

These haiku were written on walks around the Florenberg, a steep little hill in Germany, clothed with forest and crowned with a one-thousand-year-old chapel. The Fulda area was covered with beech-trees and oak-trees once.

Summit of Florenberg in spring, seen from another hilltop. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.