Book of the Week – Early Evening Pieces by Marianne Bluger
Marianne Bluger’s Early Evening Pieces is a quiet meditation on the passage of time. Her poems capture the bittersweet awareness of impermanence. Like Bashō before her, she finds the infinite within the finite yet her voice is her own.
the moonlit station
empty as a train whistles
through the small town
The train—like time itself—is already vanishing into the night, leaving only absence in its wake. The station, abandoned, hums with the echoes of what was and what will never be again.
soft summer darkness
resting the oars I glide
on floating stars
In this moment, the boundary between water and sky disappears. The self drifts somewhere between the two, weightless, unburdened, as if carried by the gentle motion of the world.
hands stiff with cold
raking leaves in the wind
I miss my kids
The stark simplicity of these lines makes their emotional weight even heavier. There is no embellishment, no metaphor—only the quiet ache of a life now scattered like the leaves she gathers.
Conclusion
Early Evening Pieces is more than a collection of haiku—it is an invitation to pause, to notice, to feel. With a keen eye and a reverence for simplicity, she transforms ordinary moments into profound reflections.
Whether evoking the hush of a moonlit train station, the weightlessness of a drifting canoe, or the quiet loneliness of raking autumn leaves, Bluger honors the haiku traditions while carving out a voice uniquely her own—one rooted in personal memory, in quiet observation, in the fleeting beauty of the everyday.
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You can read the entire book in the THF Digital Library. Please share your favorite poem from the book with us.
Do you have a full or chapbook length book published in 2020 or earlier that you would like featured as a Book of the Week? Contact us for details. Haiku featured in the Book of the Week Archive are selected by the THF Digital Librarian Dan Campbell and are used with permission.
Comments (5)
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I enjoyed a taste of living in the northern hemisphere landscape. Some lovely poems. I was intrigued by the placement of the pause or breath in some which I haven’t seen before but it seemed to work. Clearly Marianne also contributes to a better world not just through her poetry.
Nice sentiments but a bit wordy.
Many of these are very good, Dan. A worthwhile read. Thank you.
There’s a gentleness of the world in this volume. And a childlike innocence that takes me back to my grandparents’ farm. Quietly observing the slow times that gently pass on snowy mornings and hot summer afternoons. Thank you for a brief respite with your sharing Early Evening Pieces, Marianne Bluger.
Thank you for a chance to read this book…’on floating stars’
lovely…