Haiku is a compelling form and it has drawn me back. Since I announced in July that I was interested in Haiku I have continued to pursue that deceptively simple and difficult form.
I have been writing Haiku and keeping a special haiku log. I have also submitted more recently a group of new haiku to an editor who has encouraged me in the past. He came through again--he said that they showed an advance in Haiku for me and then he recommended that I consult some books of Haiku written by people writing contemporary Haiku.
One book he mentioned BEAK OPEN FEET RELAXED presents the haiku of Priscilla Lignori. I can see the connection again between haiku and zen . She also details an apprenticeship with Clark Strand. That connection becomes even more evident when I also ordered THE ESSENTIAL HAIKU edited by Robert Hass and focusing on three of the greatest writers of Haiku--Basho, Buson, and Issa. What is most valuable here is that Hass leads off with a detailed and very helpful introduction.
I like the way he admits his own limitations---because that is what haiku confronts us with:
"I know that for years I did not see how deeply personal these poems were or, to say it another way, how much they have the flavor--Basho might have said "the scent" -- of a particular human life, because I had been told and wanted to believe that haiku were never subjective...One returns to their mysteriousness anyway."
One haiku at random from Basho:
Even in Kyoto --
hearing the cuckoo's cry--
I long for Kyoto.
NOW FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE NON-SUBLIME
I have been keeping up a daily practice of writing haIku. Here are some of my efforts for the past few weeks:
DAILY HAIKU SAMPLER
Geraniums bloom--
outside ice frosts the window--
my mother's kitchen,.
Floating in water--
apples bob waiting for ghost,
witch, Wonder Woman.
Cough, sneeze, throat clearing--
harsh chorus welcomes winter--
dead leaves litter my porch floor.
Bird feeders spill seed--
a flock of red-winged blackbirds
fend off the squirrels.
When the blackbirds rise,
they flash rubies as they fly--
taking their treasure.
Late autumn bare trees
show us where squirrels nested--
hidden in plain sight.
Neighbors died last year--
cut back trumpet vines regrow--
they want privacy.
Winter sleet inscribes
frost lace on windows weakens
autumns windy grasp.
The lemon tree sits--
safe from winter storms outside--
even snug leaves fall.
He is an open book--
blank pages where money writes.
Why would he hide that?
Rain darkens the sky--
at dawn's gray light furnace starts--
the oil man appears.
Mandarin Duck lands--
cheers birders in Central Park --
China is so far.
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