When I looked at your new web pages, how happy I am to see you have written haiku and posting them on your site!!! Your story with the haiku could make haibun. Thank you for sharing your story and about the things you learned from the forest and experience.
Here are favorites of mine:
lilac light
from window
his shoe alone
The purple-shaded light speaks of melancholy. The color, lilac-purple, can also be associated with love, too. Without the story of what you and Don experienced, by which I now know he was not able to wear one shoe -- the single shoe belonging to a man is a lonely image, making the reader feel that perhaps the loved one is absent, and his mate left alone by herself. The color of the light is a cool color, though, rather than a warm color, and it makes me think of evening light, rather than morning or afternoon. If it is morning, it feels as if it would be very early, as the sun is just rising. A window implies that one is inside a room, perhaps a bedroom, looking out of the glass to a garden, or receiving light from outside...another feeling of separation and distance. The poem evokes strong emotion with a just a few words; it defines what: (a shoe alone); where/place (from window); when (in lilac light, maybe spring or early summer evening?)
forest exhales
when I tug at
ivy root
The idea that the earth exhales the scent of forest when the root is tugged is alive and vital. I have smelled that fragrance. It is as if the old and ancient earth is breathing out a fragrant breath when the growing thing which it hosts and nourishes is disturbed. It is a contrast of great and small, and also ancient and new, life and death. It makes me feel that the earth may have emotions and become a bit perturbed and disturbed by some things we do.
cottonwood
endlessly snows
a neighbor passed away
It is your feeling for life and your neighbor reflected in the activity of the cottonwood. The drifting snow of white, soft, seeds is in a warmer season than winter, though. I think of warm, soft tears in response to news of death, but white like the cleansing whiteness of snow, although even gentler. It is a beautiful haiku.
poured water
lets cherry bloom again
in a white bowl
I like the twist, or surprise, in the last line. I like this one especially. You express hope in this haiku. The poured water is healing, life-giving. Even though the cherry bloom is cut off from its source, the tree, and is transient, it has been given a second life, or an extended life (maybe like Don, because there is insurance, doctor's knowledge and medicine that has enabled him to live, whereas had they not been available, he could have easily died).
clover scent all over
brings me back to
a little girl
Your experience with the scent of clover also brings me back to a little girl. I lived in England for a few years when I was in elementary school. We had fields of clover in our yards. There was one particular field where I would play with a group of friends. We would make clover-chains to wear. We also would suck "clover honey" from the flowers. In summertime, there would be many bumble bees in the clover. We would catch them in jars with pierced lids (for air), sometimes making the jar full of bees. Then we would put the jars on the ground, remove the lids quickly, and run away, trying to escape the angry bees. I don't remember ever being stung by them.
my shadow
works hard on soil
putting herself aside
This one has a classic feel to it, the shadow performing the gardening and "putting herself aside". The last line is especially fine related to the rest of the poem!!! You had put yourself and your other priorities aside for Don, and had learned of the forest from the forest, you became transparent, as you are your shadow's shadow.
Yoshiko, I saw the trees you painted on your walls -- Would you believe I painted a tree on our wall much like yours many years ago. We lived in North Carolina, and had rented a house. Before we moved in, we painted the walls white. I didn't have much furniture or much of anything to put on the walls, so I painted a big tree in the corner of the room. It didn't have any leaves at first. At Christmas, I taped the holiday cards all over the branches. Then, in spring, I painted apple blossoms on them. In summer, I painted some leaves.to the top
This haiku is for you....
late spring light
entering the forest, a woman
becomes transparent