under the forsythia

under
forsythia


two
translucent
purple
fish

I jotted this image down in a notebook when we started gardening in the spring. It stuck with me as an interesting, incongruous combination of elements -- brilliant yellow flowers on the forsythia bush in spring, and in the wet, brown, leafy dirt beneath it were a couple of plastic toy fish figurines. Margarite & I imagined they were left there by the neighbor kids, or maybe the young daughter of the family we bought the house from last year.

Although the image has stuck with me, every version of a haiku I've made from it so far has been blah. I intentionally haven't wanted to force any symbolism or sentiment into the image, but maybe it needs something more to make it live. Either more description to get across the visual and physical vividness that made it memorable, or an injection of some greater significance... Let's try for the former:

forsythia's
yellow
wild

in the dead leaves

purple
plastic
fishes

Hmm.