Michele Root-Bernstein

Heart-Springs

after supper my best friend and I make up a game with no name we sit on the grass and pick a word any word

dumb

on the count of three we look into each other’s eyes and begin to chant

dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

the rules are not to look away from each other and not to stop ever until

on a sudden dusk
all the world one ear
one drum

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About the Author

Michele Root-Bernstein devotes herself to haiku, haibun, and haiga. The former book review editor of Modern Haiku, she currently facilitates the Michigan-based Evergreen Haiku Study Group. Her e-chapbook Wind Rose (Snapshot Press) received a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award honorable mention in 2020. She won the 2022 Snapshot Press Book Awards for her full-length collection Plainsong.