Autumn haiku

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how many times you try
to land right
but you forget the wind

    ~

my mother's mind
a leaf in the air
blowing away

    ~

a leaf stem
held by a wet stair
allowing the leaf to watch below
like a turkey vulture

    ~

a floating petal
caught on a spider's shaft
a crane stutters overhead

    ~

caught in his arms

late in life

she said, I do

Have you tried haiku? Though the strict form is 5-7-5, meaning five syllables on the first line, then 7 on the second and 5 on the third (a syllable is on in Japanese) modern haiku is less structured. Haiku in Japanese means "playful verse". The most important elements in haiku traditionally are the kigo, or season word (such as frog, which indicates spring) and the kireji, which is the cutting word. The cutting word, which comes somewhere in the middle, creates the playfulness between the first part and the second, maybe a tension or a revelation. Also, the poem should invoke images, which is what Robert at The Solitary Walker did in his poem "aeolian"-- very imagistic and haiku-esque, as in this couplet: 

     black crows strut on black earth
     tricking the eye

Thank you, Robert, for the inspiration. I was writing haiku in my mind all the way to work after reading that poem. It's nice that your treks inform your inner journey, something I've enjoyed from George at Transit Notes and Lorenzo at The Alchemist's Pillow as well.

Good haiku is not easy, I think. I like going back to the "old" haiku poets for studying their skill at capturing so much in just a few words and sounds, like Basho:

An old silent pond...
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

~ Basho (1644-1694)

. . . or Soseki:

Over the wintry
forest, winds howl in rage
with no leaves to blow.

~ Soseki (1275-1351)

For more inspiration, a nice site for modern haiku is modernhaiku.org.

Reading or writing haiku is an illuminating way to meditate.

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