Image CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0 Steve Rotman on Flickr.com 

I am joining Trina Haase at Trinarrative for a daily haiku challenge in December.

Practice is over, but the coach keeps the gym open for an extra ten or fifteen minutes for the handful of boys who want to practice their shooting. I sit cross-legged on the gym floor in the corner, waiting for my son. He’s arcing threes from way downtown, and I’m reading a book about Basho, the seventeenth-century Buddhist monk and haiku master.

Jane Hirshfield claims of Basho, “Seen truly, he taught, there is nothing that does not become a flower, a moon.” I copy lines from Basho in my notebook as balls bounce and sneakers squeak.

bounce and squeak
the sound of a basketball court
after practice

what does the ball say
as it bounces off the rim?
try again. now swish.