Rain falls harder as we ride out of the clouded city
on a lime green motorcycle with wide pannier thighs
I spread my weight over the sides (this isn't the day
we tip over, tumble down a highway), heavy trucks
passing not much faster but with more force, shaking
the bike on the wet. Halfway to the park with the beach
I spot a park with a bridge, a stream; I shout in the fishbowl
helmet “let's stop here for a minute” and the rider
says “maybe the rain will stop soon” and now we're hiking
up against the currents, picking one fork over the other,
but instead of the source my stream leads to the end
where two salmon shallowly rest. “oh no they're us” I point
and we laugh because we're sad about the fish. We turn back
riding on to the park that is all woods—night came quick
and I'm sodden. We stop. Set up red tent in a layer of water.
In the morning there's no more rain, we aren't washed away,
it's not the park with the beach but all the world is
old cedar and cool silence and moss.
Monica Wang has haiku in the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational (Sakura Award 2018), Setouchi Matsuyama Haiku Contest (Honourable Mention 2020 & 2021), and HSA's Frogpond. Born in Taichung, Taiwan, she grew up in Taipei and Vancouver, Canada, and now lives in Amsterdam.
Featured image of Goldstream Provincial Park by Germán Poo-Caamaño “Misty gold stream” (filters applied) CC BY 2.0
