When I lived in New England, the northeastern area of America, winter meant snow was possible from the last high school football game in November to bulbs sending shoots up in early April. Snow ranged from a light dusting over the ground to a driving storm leaving two feet, and it was beautiful much of the time—fresh, pristine white, without paths or roads until the clearing began.
In my thirties, one winter morning after a night’s storm, looking out my kitchen window I saw a bright red cardinal with its crest conspicuous, perched on a normally scraggly hedge now covered by crystalline snow and said, “a cardinal in the snow,” which became my first published haiku. Its acceptance was ecstasy.
snow everywhere
a cardinal in the hedge
faces the sun
Haiku appeared less in my writing as poetry and personal narrative took over from 1977 to 1995. Then I wrote very little until 2003 when I began a book with a writing schedule from a higher source than me. I’d write, then the writing would stop. After awhile it would begin again. So when in 2009 I realized that I was seeing views of nature potentially as haiku I felt ecstatic. I wrote for several months then the writing stopped until in the fall of 2015 I again saw a first view (the first haiku below) that caused me to stop, think, and say, “haiku?”
The Haiku Handbook with my markings and yellow highlighting on pages of in-depth information and examples clearly shows my study of the form. But of more interest to me now is my strong wanting to scribble views on any paper available, as my pencil seeks to create haiku.
Here is what I’ve worked to capture this time with other scraps waiting.
a young neem
on its lowest branch
a torn shirt
pulling a heavy sweater
past my eyes—
pink bougainvillea!
across the face
in a photo
a cow passes
a bird’s shadow
crosses the dirt
oh, where? oh, what!
top of a young neem
unbent
by a sparrow
my car stopped
a wide ditch
a cloud’s white rim
a carrot’s thick end
my knife through
thunk!
at dusk
the curve of his sickle
strips the husks
a leafless champa
two flowers
remember
My realization is, “Reading and writing haiku may open us to a deeper feeling of connectedness with life.”
* The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku, William J. Higginson with Penny Harter
In my thirties, one winter morning after a night’s storm, looking out my kitchen window I saw a bright red cardinal with its crest conspicuous, perched on a normally scraggly hedge now covered by crystalline snow and said, “a cardinal in the snow,” which became my first published haiku. Its acceptance was ecstasy.
snow everywhere
a cardinal in the hedge
faces the sun
Haiku appeared less in my writing as poetry and personal narrative took over from 1977 to 1995. Then I wrote very little until 2003 when I began a book with a writing schedule from a higher source than me. I’d write, then the writing would stop. After awhile it would begin again. So when in 2009 I realized that I was seeing views of nature potentially as haiku I felt ecstatic. I wrote for several months then the writing stopped until in the fall of 2015 I again saw a first view (the first haiku below) that caused me to stop, think, and say, “haiku?”
The Haiku Handbook with my markings and yellow highlighting on pages of in-depth information and examples clearly shows my study of the form. But of more interest to me now is my strong wanting to scribble views on any paper available, as my pencil seeks to create haiku.
Here is what I’ve worked to capture this time with other scraps waiting.
a young neem
on its lowest branch
a torn shirt
pulling a heavy sweater
past my eyes—
pink bougainvillea!
across the face
in a photo
a cow passes
a bird’s shadow
crosses the dirt
oh, where? oh, what!
top of a young neem
unbent
by a sparrow
my car stopped
a wide ditch
a cloud’s white rim
a carrot’s thick end
my knife through
thunk!
at dusk
the curve of his sickle
strips the husks
a leafless champa
two flowers
remember
My realization is, “Reading and writing haiku may open us to a deeper feeling of connectedness with life.”
* The Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku, William J. Higginson with Penny Harter