HAIKU DIALOGUE – A Good Wander: The Art of Pilgrimage – Obstacles and Trials

A Good Wander: The Art of Pilgrimage with Guest Editor P. H. Fischer

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” – Basho (translated by Sam Hamill, The Essential Bashō, Shambhala, 1999)

Ready to lose yourself in the wonder of wandering? If so, grab your rucksack, water bottle (filled with a bit of sake perhaps), a pair of good trail shoes, a sturdy walking stick, and, of course, your favourite notebook and pen.

Over these next two months, I’ll share brief reflections and photo prompts from my Camino pilgrimage. This 900 km trek, from France across the Iberian Peninsula to Santiago de Compostela and beyond to the Atlantic Ocean, reignited a passion in me for haiku. I committed to composing at least one poem per day as a practice of being present to the moments unfolding along the way.

I’m not the first to scribble haiku while sojourning through villages, cities, mountains, plains, and sacred sites. Beginning with Basho (his Narrow Road to a Far Province remains the classic haiku travelogue), many poets including Santoka, Ryokan, and Kerouac, have taken to the open road to wander lonely as clouds, sing songs of nature (and themselves), and return to inspire others to join in on the chorus.

I invite you, likewise, to heed the poet’s instinct to get outside to go within; to ramble with intent, to write, and to return from your journey renewed, perhaps even transformed. You don’t need to go to Santiago, Jerusalem, Stonehenge, Graceland, Burning Man, or Matsuyama to accomplish this. Even a walk to the corner store can be a pilgrimage if experienced with our haiku senses attuned. Through the wonders of technology, we can journey from the comforts of our home if a physical jaunt is not possible. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that perhaps the most fascinating journey – navigating our interior landscape – can happen while sitting quietly on our meditation cushion.

It may be true, as J.R.R. Tolkien attested that “not all who wander are lost,” but let’s have fun trying. Isn’t that the goal of both pilgrimage and art – to lose oneself utterly in the present moment? To experience the ineffable/transcendent/divine (pick your term), and at least try to transmute our experience through a creative medium like haiku?

Alright, enough talk! Let’s get out wandering and writing. I look forward to reading your poems about real, imagined, imminent, interrupted, or eventual journeys. May the wind be always at your back!

next week’s theme: Carpe Diem!

In Los Arcos, a week into my pilgrimage, and a day after the famed wine fountain at Irache, I paused at the cemetery on the edge of town to decipher an odd message written for all passersby. Inscribed over the gate of the burial ground was a proclamation by those who lived, toiled, and now rested in the earth of this old town.

As I watched fellow pilgrims walk past the inscription without as much as a glance, I was grateful for having seen it, and for Google’s ability to translate the message for me:

I once was what you are.
You will be as I am.

A tingle shot up my spine; my brush with mortality in the Pyrenees still sending out aftershocks. I recalled an Ash Wednesday service I attended years ago, presided over by my clergy friend who first planted the idea of the Camino in me. Full of compassion, he looked into my eyes, loaded his thumb from a small bowl filled with palm ashes from the previous Easter, smudged a cross on my forehead, and spoke this strangely comforting blessing: “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

I also thought of the Dead Poets Society and the fictional Professor Keating whispering to his students as they leaned in to view old photographs of deceased alumni: If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you… do you hear it? Carpe… carpe… carpe diem. Seize the day!

As we walk our own journeys this week, reflecting on the temporality of all things (including ourselves), let’s write a haiku/senryu inspired and encouraged by those gone before, by the great cloud of witnesses, by the communion of life. During this coming week of celebrating Halloween and All Souls, I look forward to your poems that seize the haiku moments within your day, considering the end we will all inevitably face (hopefully many more miles down the road).

The deadline is midnight Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday October 29, 2022.

below is Peter’s commentary for obstacles and trials:

Friends, I’m playing hurt this week. Ironically, as our writing prompt recalls my last brush with mortality up in the French Pyrenees, I am now writing from a hospital bed. This has given me pause (again) to reflect on what is most important in my life journey. For that, I’m grateful. I’m staying positive and hopeful. In the meantime, your haiku submissions have been a tonic for me – a delightful diversion and sense of commiseration while waiting for the next steps.

Whether it was walking on thin ice, huddled in mountain caves, searching for sign posts buried in the snow, travelling to the roof of the world (the Himalayas), the English Channel, or the Australian outback, it wasn’t just my illness that took my breath away this week! I’ve picked out a handful of poems to comment on. Please share some of the heavy lifting and provide your own notes of appreciation for other fine haiku/senryu that speak to you in the selections.

A couple of housekeeping items before we dive in: Please remember to only submit two poems before the deadline per week. To honour the integrity of the submission process and to be fair to other poets, I will not select a poem if the poet has submitted more than the maximum limit of two. Hope that’s understandable. Another thing that would be really, really helpful for guest editors is for you to include your name and location underneath your poem(s) within the same cell that contains your poem. Even though the form asks for your name and location again in another cell, the happy result would mean one copy and paste instead of three, which adds up to a good chunk of time for the guest editor. Several of you are doing this already. Much appreciated!

Finally, while I covet your good vibes for my recovery (thank-you!), let’s keep the focus of our comments on the poems selected this week. There are some great ones, beginning with what follows.

Ultreia! Peter

looking
beyond
beyond

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa, USA

At first glance – and that’s all it took – this poem caught this “looker” like an image reflected in an infinity mirror. It’s fun, yet profound. For me, it raises the question: can we transcend our limited perspectives? Or can we let go of the desire to do so? Perhaps we’d be wise, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery once suggested, to close our eyes and open our hearts, which can “see” the essence of reality. Another way to view this poem (there are many) is to accept its implicit invitation to move past the question “is there life after death?” to a more important one. With the eyes of the heart opened, the question turns back around; reclaimed for the present moment: “Is there life before death?” As haiku poets, we know the answer to that question.

in the mud
on the wrong side of the río
one shoe

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

A single shoe in the mud on the banks of the Rio Bravo. Such powerful, evocative, and disturbing imagery! That said, it’s the phrase “wrong side” that haunts and keeps me coming back to this poem. Which side of the river is the “wrong” side? Can there be such a discrimination? Yes, unfortunately. If we follow some blow-hard politicians mischaracterizing their neighbours across the border, we may adopt an “us versus them” ideology that cages (literally sometimes) the other should they dare try to seek a better life on “our” side. From another perspective, the affluent, corporate-dominated, imperialistic, and domineering side of the divide may appear to be the “wrong side” for anyone with more compassionate, egalitarian, and inclusive values. Thankfully, Peggy doesn’t steer into didacticism but skillfully focuses the lens of the poem onto an image planted in the mud, a symbol of how entrenched we can be in nationalism instead of embracing our common humanity.

sundown
the dog’s hips stuck
in the squeeze stile

simonj
UK

Another trap! This time, as the day draws to a close, the poet describes “man’s best friend” stuck in a squeeze stile, the English invention farmers have used for centuries to allow humans to traverse boundaries while preventing livestock from doing the same. It’s not just human beings who encounter obstacles and trials along life’s path. The dog’s predicament freezes time for the reader as we’re left wondering if someone will save the poor pooch. The poem, with its liberal use of alliteration, assonance, and consonance, is euphonically pleasing. As is the freedom the dog in question experiences as we, the reader, finish the tale in the white space beyond the poem’s last syllable. It’s there that the poem takes a turn and man becomes the “dog’s best friend.”

closing my eyes
to the memory
balut

(balut = 18-day old incubated duck egg, eaten in the shell; street food in the Philippines)

Jonathan Epstein
USA

We expect to see haiku written in the present tense. In Jonathan’s delicious poem (the balut notwithstanding!), we meet someone in the present moment, closing their eyes. That’s all that’s happening here. Or is it? Whether the person’s at their writing desk, in transit on the subway, or pausing in front of a just-served balut in a Filipino restaurant in their American city, there’s a lot going on behind those eyelids! They transport back to another time, another place, another moment that, in recollection, becomes so perfectly present that we can taste it. They delight or cringe at the past, made present again through the superpower of imagination. As a vegan, I will not be ordering balut any day soon, but I’ll take a second helping of poems like this anytime!

monkey bite—
I pretend Hanuman
favors me

Pippa Phillips
Kansas City

Shit happens. Undeniably. A bird poops on your head, a car breaks down in the desert, a morning starts with coffee and Wordle and ends with half your ass hanging out of a hospital gown. A monkey may bite the hand that feeds. How to read this? How to read life? Why not mythologically, poetically, imaginatively? Pippa’s poem, alluding to the great Hindu Monkey King myth of Hanuman, invites us to reframe our maladies and misfortunes. What happens is often out of our control. Our response to what happens is up to us. Is it possible to see points of light in times of darkness? While I’d love to hear more of the subject’s encounter with a monkey, what I really need is a similar spirit of resilience to enliven my view of life’s obstacles and setbacks.

and here are the rest of the selections:

inside every heart
the lonely traveler
beside the wild lake

Deborah Bennett
Carbondale, Illinois USA

 

91st birthday
climbing out of bed
her Everest

Nick T
Somerset, UK

 

repeat dream
a leopard crouches low,
leaps on a lowing calf

Neera Kashyap
Delhi, India

 

weather forecast
I pack my pilgrim bag
I unpack my pilgrim bag

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

our luggage carrier
saturated
with cat piss

Julie Bloss Kelsey
Germantown, Maryland, USA

 

hypertension
as the red line picks up
speed to the airport

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
Hyderabad, India

 

cancelled flight
above the airport
a flock of cranes

Florin C. Ciobica
Romania

 

missed flight—
breathless, I see
the takeoff

Neena Singh
India

 

meeting the One
while stuck at the airport …
changed route

Natalia Kuznetsova
Russia

 

our lost tickets
at the feet of Hermes
Athens Airport

Victor Ortiz
Bellingham, WA

 

TSA checkpoint
stepping aside to air
my dirty laundry

Sharon Martina
Warrenville, IL

 

lost passport
briefly freed
from my karma

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

wrong train
seeing another side
of myself

petro c. k.
Seattle, Washington

 

cruise of a lifetime in cabin lockdown

Caroline Giles Banks
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

 

early morning bush walk
clearing the cobwebs

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

road trip chatter
turning out of the driveway
we break down

Marion Clarke
Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland

 

hard rain
my mountain bike’s tyre
exhales

Ravi Kiran
India

 

mind the gap
tripping and falling
into the tube

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio

 

Dover to Calais
roll, pitch and heave
ad nauseam

Maxianne Berger
Outremont, Quebec

 

missing my bus
the long, waterless, walk
from Uluru

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

didgeridoo voice
the wallet-less way home
from the outback

Richard L. Matta
San Diego, California, USA

 

growth strategy
the great march forward
leading backward

John Hawkhead
The Shambles, UK

 

endless journey
around the grindstone
a blindfolded camel

Ingrid Baluchi
U.K./North Macedonia

 

ramblers’ footpath
I yield my right of way
to the bull

Ruth Holzer
Herndon, Virginia

 

the newborn’s
discharge rescinded—
incubator

Stephen J. DeGuire
Los Angeles, CA

 

the son he imagined
walks alongside
the son that he has

Colette Kern
Southold, NY

 

under the bridge
never acknowledging
the thin ice

Lynne Jambor
Vancouver BC Canada

 

coyote call
between the boulders
my boot

marilyn ashbaugh
edwardsburg, michigan

 

ancient forest
bear and bear cub
among the raspberries

Stoianka Boianova
Bulgaria

 

detour –
a field
of wildflowers

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

beautiful
the weeds
in my garden

Tiffany Shaw-Diaz
United States

 

dandelion through a crack loneliness escaping me

Richa Sharma
India

 

songs of a thrush –
ancestral messages
from beyond

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

another uphill
the rock
in my shoe

Lorraine A Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

mountain climb
I keep my balance
with a selfie stick

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

halfway up
the temple stairs . . .
breathing meditation

Kimberly Kuchar
Austin, Texas

 

wave of mist –
climbing up
from cloud to cloud

Piyal Ranasinghe
Colombo, Sri Lanka

 

trudging up
a crooked trail. . .
the whole Himalayas

Meera Rehm
UK

 

gravel mountain road
flooring the supermini
and praying

Kerry J Heckman
Seattle, WA

 

Khardung La
the next turn turns
rain into snow

(Khardung La is a mountain pass in the Leh district of Indian union territory of Ladakh. It is the highest motorable pass in the world.)

Vandana Parashar
India

 

hairpin curves the illusion of new beginnings

Daya Bhat
India

 

Koya mountain path
in the blizzard
barely visible signpost

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

pace of the wind
I too change
direction

C.X.Turner
United Kingdom

 

stuck in the storm
strangers telling each other
their name

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany

 

mountain cave
our embrace outlasts
the snowstorm

Subir Ningthouja
Imphal, India

 

camino pilgrims
twisting in a cold wind…
pink scallop shells

Marilyn Ward
Lincolnshire, UK

 

mountain pilgrimage
in my footsteps the questions
I need to answer

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, WA

 

stalemate the war with myself

Tim Cremin
Massachusetts

 

walking in the fog
I don’t get lost
I’m already lost

Luciana Moretto
Treviso Italy

 

seeking
the big Buddha
lost in the smog…

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

 

electrolyte deficit
my wobble
at high altitude

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

slurred words
I keep
my own counsel

Luciana Moretto
Treviso Italy

Himalayan trek
… he teaches us
to climb down
…………………………….s
………………………….i
…………………….d
…………………e
……………w
……….a
…..y
s

Sushama Kapur
India

 

hitchhiker
in a snowstorm
the long night

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

arthritis—
the haiku in my mind
stays in my mind

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

withering winds…
finally finding
Ms. Right MD

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

side by side
in the hotel
in the hospital

Maurice Nevile
Canberra, Australia

 

cut flowers –
no one in his place
on the return journey

fiori recisi –
nessuno al suo posto
nel viaggio di ritorno

Maria Teresa Piras
Sardinia – Italy

 

tenth wedding anniversary
she takes off
her ring

Vicki Vogt
Watertown, MA United States

 

……………ety……………..ety
bump……….bump……….long-haul Covid

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

glimpses of azure ocean
from my bungalow porch
covid iso

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

ocean voyage —
waves lift and drop us
in midnight’s black

Pris Campbell
U.S.A.

 

baggage claim
the wrong name
on my suitcase

Baisali Chatterjee Dutt
Kolkata, India

 

forgotten toothbrush
our good morning
air kiss

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

swim-up bar
my underpants still flying
elsewhere

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

why can’t I go in?
Buckingham Palace guards
will not say a word

Margie Gustafson
Lombard, IL USA

 

how lucky to find
a waterside tent pitch —
Alligator Lake

(Arriving at night, we saw the warning sign only next morning)

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

unprepared camper
at the next site
a bear eats his birthday cake

Deborah P Kolodji
Temple City, CA

 

fear of heights
left behind
hot air balloons

Geoff Pope
Paducah, Kentucky

 

windy riverside
discovering a shrine
between street arts

Anna Yin
Ontario, Canada

 

retracing
the path back home
Hurricane Ophelia

Lori Kiefer
London UK

 

the strait fills
with fog
no puffins today

Susan Farner
USA

 

hearing aids—
still can’t hear the rain
pummeling the roof

Terry Macrae
Roseburg, OR, USA

 

rising above
negative self-talk
erect lotus

Amoolya Kamalnath
India

 

Cruz de Fierro
the paraplegic
on hands and knees

(The Cruz de Fierro (cross of iron) on the Camino de Santiago is atop a large pile of stones that pilgrims have carried and deposited over the years as penance.)

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

climbing
the last hill
engine fire

Pamela Jeanne
Yukon, Canada

 

overnight snow …
in the silence
nothing is certain

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

Guest Editor P. H. Fischer (Peter) lives, works and plays in Vancouver, Canada, on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. He is the winner of the Vancouver category of the 2022 Haiku Invitational of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, and is grateful to see his poetry published in a growing list of haiku journals including The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Presence, First Frost, Whiptail, Kingfisher, Prune Juice, Haiku Canada Review and others. His top passions (besides family) are walking and writing haiku. If he could, he’d leave on another 900 km ginko today!

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. A novice haiku poet, she lives in New York City.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

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