If you’re not ready to go, then it’s only appropriate to keep us waiting. There’s nothing else we’d rather being doing and so we’re not going to do it. It’s bad times for saving, but we can spend all the energy we want. Renewables are big, and there are panels on every roof to reflect this. We don’t read into much, but we scroll over everything. They’re swapping prisoners now for climate change, or my earthquake for your flash flood. Have you noticed? There’s no such thing these days as just a brushfire. We’d jump in, but everyone else wants out, so here we are, stealing a breath.

Peter Jastermsky

is the author of seven books of haiku-based writing and lives in the high desert of Southern California. He is also an award-winning cherita poet whose work has been widely published, and a nominee for Best of the Net and the Dwarf Star Award. In 2017, Peter invented a new linked form that is haiku-centered called a split sequence. His recent book, Just Dust and Stone (Velvet Dusk Publishing, 2021) is a collection of collaborative split sequences, cowritten with Bryan Rickert. Peter’s other titles include Steel Cut Moon (Cholla Needles Press, 2019) and Fingerbone Sky (Yavanika Press, 2021).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ “Love Thing”: The Allure of the Split Sequence, craft essay by Peter Jastermsky in Issue 9 of MacQ (August 2021)