Per Diem

[Jack Galmitz]

Very glad to hear it, John.
Best,
Jack

[John McManus]

Okay, in the hope that this will spark others into action, here is my take on today's per diem offering.

kite flying day
colored squares patch
the holes in the sky

Gautam Nadkami


For me the opening invites us to create a picture of numerous kites, each with it's own distinct colours, designs and shapes, it creates a sense of freedom and child-like innocence. I am instantly swept up in the colour and the playfulness.

Line two gives us a specific detail to focus on, it feels like a zoom effect. I now have my eye fixed on a kite that I favour over the others on offer to me. The last word patch mirrors squares, since we associate a patch as being square. But what else do we associate squares with? Squares are equal sided, which would equate to something being even (eveness is connected to fairness and equality)  squares are also boxes, I sense a strange historical irony and am reminded that for a long time people believed the world was actually square. There are other things that spring to mind but I'll move on for now, as I feel I could go on for a while.

Line three, could just be the way the poet is describing breaks in the clouds, but it comes across to me as a reference to the ozone layer, and thus reminds me of how in our ignorance we have plundered and damaged our natural habitats.

All of this is my subjective take on this poem, and I apologise if anything I have said is confusing, but I hope to hear others feelings and thoughts on this haiku.

warmest,
John                   

[Jack Galmitz]

At first, I thought the author surely was Japanese, because of the lively use of saijiki rather than our ELH equivalent of a seasonal word or reference.  It turns out the author is from India, but there apppears to have developed there something akin to the saijiki.  What I mean by this is that the seasonal reference is largely a long shared and cherished cultural/literary entity, not a mere reference to a season.
There is such a great deal of enthusiasm and energy in "kite flying day," something I cannot imagine in the USA.  A day so perfect for kite flying?  Yes, we all have our memories of flying kites (for me mostly bad, running to start it and it flopping or tearing to the cement, or it getting stuck on a power line or tree, or never reaching a great height).  And there is a communal feeling in the haiku right from the start-that is what saijiki is, something shared by a people at a particular time and place.  Perhaps the USA is so divergent and demographics have changed so much that it is hard to imagine Americans as a people and them sharing the excitment of a great day to fly kites.
Then, you have a sky full of color, of different kites, a shared experience that enlivens the sky and it is only then that you realize that the sky was empty, a void, a gigantic hole or holes if you will until these kites, box-kites, fighter kites, all sorts of kites are like patches on the empty torn space of the sky.
I think it is a charming haiku; it brings the lighter side of the art to the fore and binds a people to one another.

At least for me that is something unavailable in the USA.  OF course, we have our national holidays, but they are celebrated individually; that is typical of America, this individualism.
Kite flying goes back thousands of years in China.   Without the need for practical purpose.
NOt to underestimate the scientific value of Ben Franklin's discovery of electricity in lightning by flying a kite, we tend to see things in a pragmantic way, not as mere social amusemenet.  Of course, we do have our amusements, but at the moment I cannot think of any.

[Melissa Spurr]

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[John McManus]

Hey Melissa, it's great seeing you around these parts ;)

I enjoyed your thoughts on Guatam's ku.

Okay on to today's per diem offering.

An evening seashell
with its pearly glow
lights the fisherman's way home

Ernesto Pangilinan Santiago

As Jack has already said, the goal of Per Diem is to offer as wide a range of haiku as possible, and if Christopher.A White's ku from a couple of days ago was an innovative, contemporary haiku then ernesto's most definately has it's roots in the more traditional nature sketch.

The first line is something that one has come to expect in a haiku, it sets the time of day, and offers us an objective peice of nature. The second line is a beautiful description, and for me injects a sense of hope into the poem. With the introduction of the fisherman in the third line I get the feeling that it may be that the author is recalling a moment in childhood perhaps and is waiting for his father to return from catching fish or that he is observing some child or wife of a fisherman waiting hopefully for their loved one to return to them. Overall I would say it is a charming poem that realistically depicts the life of fishermen and their families.

warmest,
John