HAIKU DIALOGUE – Ad Astra – impermanence
Ad Astra with Guest Editor Alex Fyffe
My name is Alex Fyffe, and I am honored to be the Guest Editor of Haiku Dialogue. I would like us to look up and take inspiration from the vastness of outer space. Each week, in a series called Ad Astra (To the Stars), I will present a new topic based on the Great Out There, ranging from satellites to constellations. However, we will be avoiding our sun and moon, as they already get enough exposure in haiku, and, frankly, I think their egos are big enough as is. So we will focus more on their siblings and hopefully write some stellar haiku in the process. I look forward to reading all of your submissions each week.
next week’s theme: Space has famously been called the final frontier, and it has inspired a whole genre of planet-hopping adventures, in some ways replacing the old frontier westerns of days past. Having explored the Earth’s surface, we turned our eyes to that frontier that still lies beyond our grasp, allowing our imaginations to run free considering all of the possibilities: colonizing and terraforming Mars, discovering new technologies to reach distant stars, sending generations across space to find a new home, building and populating artificial colonies. Our best and brightest visions of the future are full of the hope that our ingenuity and adaptability will open up new worlds for us. To end our exploration of the space theme, I would like to prompt you to write a poem based on the exploration, innovation, and hope that the new frontier of space offers us.
The deadline is midnight Central Time, Saturday January 01, 2022.
Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry. (The Submit button will not be available until the Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in.) With your poem, please include any special formatting requirements & your name as you would like it to appear in the column. A few haiku will be selected for commentary each week. Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.
below is Alex’s commentary for impermanence:
galaxies I’ll never see autumn leaves red shifted
Eric Lohman
Powder Springs, Georgia
Lohman combines the imagery of red autumn leaves with the concept of an expanding universe moving farther and farther out of reach. As our seasons change and we approach the end of our limited lives, we leave behind a vast unknown of potential experiences, sights, and sounds. Most of the universe becomes increasingly impossible to grasp with so little time left to us.
dead star
the robin eats
winter berriesRichard Barnes
Cincinnati, Ohio
Barnes also effectively connects the local with the universal to capture the sense of things ending. As the star dies, nature, too, is in its dead season. And yet, despite all this death imagery, the berries are red, and the bird is eating, alive and bright despite the changes around them.
first lesson
in mono no aware
funfair goldfishMariel Herbert
California, USA
Herbert references the Japanese concept of mono no aware, the melancholy feeling of knowing the impermanence of things, grounding her haiku in its Japanese origins. But that first awareness of death, often with a pet, is grounded in everyday human experience. The past of Japanese art and philosophy, the author’s past in discovering death through the goldfish she won at the fair, and our memories of similar experiences all come together, folding time and experience together into a beautiful poem about this ephemeral existence.
born to die …
I whisper a secret
in the snowman’s earEva Limbach
Germany
Opening with the familiar phrase “born to die,” Limbach acknowledges her own impermanence but also plays on the term by introducing the snowman in the third line, another being destined for the same fate. But recognizing this commonality between them, perhaps, she feels the urge to share something with the snowman while they are both here, something she can only share with this dying creation who will carry it to his watery grave.
after the breakup
painting my toenails
blackAnabelle Taylor
Florida, USA
Taylor sketches the scene of a woman dealing with the change in her relationship, something that she may have hoped would last forever, now over far sooner than that. By painting her toenails black, she acknowledges a void inside of her, a desire to accept the emptiness by taking it on, using her emotional state to decorate her body. This simple act of painting her toenails is, for her, an artistic expression of the end of this thing in her life, reclaiming emptiness as her own, as something she can handle.
& here are the rest of the selections:
eternity
I among the wildflowers
in the moment of nowStephen A. Peters
Bellingham, Washington
returning to dust
my left hand
leads the wayRobert Kingston
Chelmsford, UK
time to discard
this dried rose kept for years
in the family biblePenny Harter
Mays Landing, New Jersey
engraved
into his wedding ring
this too shall passDeborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany
for one last time …
an extra cup of cappuccino
looking at the seaLakshmi Iyer
Kerala, India
… still the wind
among the leaves
still dust……Angiola Inglese
Italy
one day
we will be together again
stardustChristina Sng
Singapore
this sunspot on my cheek fading light
Sarah Metzler
USA
through an auto door
a desolate field
of the big cityTeiichi Suzuki
Japan
autumn winds
still a lot of leaves
clinging on to the branchesRam Chandran
India
the Universe almost done making stars a tourist leaves
Alan Summers
England
stardust
the river receives
grandfather’s ashesKhoa Ngo Binh Anh
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
wind-spent
the moment i will exit
my soap bubbleRicha Sharma
India
family scrapbook
once someone knew
the sound of her voicePris Campbell
USA
a spider’s universe dew-filled
Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India
not endless after all
I throw out
what’s left of his egoTracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK
night night
the music box
stopsTim Cremin
Massachusetts, USA
tang of
fallen apples
laying her to restChristopher Seep
Ballwin, Missouri
nothing
but a reverie …
cotton thistleTeji Sethi
India
the child
that was my whole world
now the starsSari Grandstaff
Saugerties, New York
afternoon walk
a poem she starts to sense
drowns in dimsey light(dimsey: Cornish dialect for dusk, dimming light, twilight)
Amanda White
Morvah, Cornwall, UK
after the universe
another try
at sentient beingsPat Davis
New Hampshire, USA
our son
becoming
Miss UniversePeg Cherrin-Myers
Franklin, Michigan
October garden
pulling whatever
is leftRoberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, Iowa
starry night
fades into
obsidianKathleen Mazurowski
Chicago, Illinois
i go in
as you walk out
revolving doorSubir Ningthouja
Imphal, India
snowflakes fall
and vanish in my hands…
another stillbirthVandana Parashar
India
a black lab laps the tears of snowmen spring
simonj
UK
time to time && somewhere :: clear bells
Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton, UK
flood alert-
within the pub’s walls
chalk ammonitesDorothy Burrows
UK
origami skiff
all the cracks
left by the foldsArvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India
dancing mayfly. . .
I too know
the moment of nowMeera Rehm
UK
kitchen skylight
what moves on whether
chores get done or notLaurie Greer
Washington, DC
Inca ruins
in the cracked walls
fresh green grassJohn Zheng
Mississippi, USA
moonlit walk
I become the shadow
becomes meMona Bedi
Delhi, India
all that is left
of that first kiss
butterfly dustRavi Kiran
India
loving each one—
the 10,000 things
I’ve becomeCynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California
particle decay —
an entire life lived
in nanosecondsMark Meyer
Mercer Island, Washington
bowed
the sound
recedingRichard Bailly
Fargo, North Dakota
alone the light goes out
Mark Gilbert
UK
winter stars
we are already
stardustAnn K. Schwader
Westminster, Colorado
New Year’s Eve
the time it takes for the sparkler
to burn outMarianne Sahlin
Sweden
morning glory bloom
a life
in the sunSusan Farner
USA
snowman –
standing in a puddle
of tearsDan Campbell
Virginia, USA
shrinking and shrinking
a milky way
in the sinkmenyusut dan menyusut
bima sakti
di wastafelChristopher Calvin
Indonesia, Kota Mojokerto, Jawa Timur (East Java)
clearing brambles
from an eroded grave stone
the name is goneDeborah Beachboard
Adna, Washington
finite universe
thank goodness
no more deadlinesIngrid Baluchi
North Macedonia
birthday dinner
the waitresses
younger every yearLouise Hopewell
Australia
winter hush –
i return
to my mineral selfVijay Prasad
Patna, India
new year countdown
only memories remain
at the dinner tableAnthony Rabang
Philippines
universe . . .
from one particle
to the nextMilan Rajkumar
India
kintsugi sky
this moment
turns goldKath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, California
fresh marigolds
fragrance wafting
on the body bagGeetha Ravichandran
Chennai, India
leaving empty-handed
the peace
of nothing moreBarrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA
alone now
my paraphernalia
and ICarol Reynolds
Australia
falling leaves…
my daughter asks me
if we are immortalFlorin C. Ciobica
Romania
long licks
off the ice-cream cone
climate changeJohn S Green
Bellingham, Washington
Christmas Eve –
in the mirror granny
wearing my pearlsCristina Povero
Italy
holding time
in my hands
forget-me-notsMargaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina
youtube couple
the videos end
in 2015Duende onFuego
USA
morning breeze
blowing steam from
a cup of teaLafcadio
USA
red giant
all become
stardustNancy Brady
Huron, Ohio
sings along
to Auld Lang Syne
last plum leafP. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada
the longest night
a universe
of dustJonathan Roman
Yonkers, New York
the Milky Way
a boarded-up Toys R Us
in the empty mallBruce Feingold
Berkeley, California
Guest Editor Alex Fyffe teaches high school English in the Houston area. Although he has been writing haiku off and on for a decade, he only started submitting his work during the Global Event known as 2020. Since then his haiku and senryu have been published in various journals, including Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Failed Haiku, Akitsu Quarterly, and the Asahi Haikuist Network. Alex’s first glimpse of haiku was in a collection of writings by Jack Kerouac, and he found the work of Issa while studying abroad in Japan, but he didn’t fall in love with the haiku until he discovered the free-form work of Santoka Taneda. Currently, Alex uses haiku in the classroom to ease students into poetry and build their confidence as readers and writers. Alex also posts haiku on Twitter @AsurasHaiku.
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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This Post Has 23 Comments
Comments are closed.
Happy New Year!
Thanks to Alex for all the space themed prompts and to Kj and Lori for organising this lovely column. I am delighted to have a poem included. Congratulations to all the poets!
Thank you for your commentary, Alex.
Thanks so much, Alex, for again including a haiku of mine. I have loved all the selections each week during this theme of space! <3
Thanks dear Alex for including my spider’s web monoku. The unique Ad Astra theme gave us much food for thought and such lovely haiku & commentary.
Grateful to you, kj & Lori for Haiku Dialogue that connects so many of us here. Wish all poet friends a wonderful 2022.
This message is for Richard Barnes. I saw that you live in Ohio. There is an active
group of Ohio haiku poets on Facebook. The group is called Ohio Haiku. We are inviting you
to join our group.
I contacted Richard on Twitter, perhaps you two can message each other?
Richard Barnes,
Cincinnati, OH
https://twitter.com/NaumaddicArts
I mentioned HNA too! 🙂
warm regards,
Alan
Thank you for the recommendations, Alan! I certainly look forward to the big event in two years. Cheers!
Great to have a potential extra pair of hands for HNA Cincinnati 2023! 🙂
Thank you so much for the invite. I look forward to joining the group. Cheers!
Happy new year wishes to you Alex and to all of the participating poets,, may our haiku muses inspire us in 2022!
Thanks Alex, Lori and Kjmunro. A beautiful read! Warm wishes!
Congrats to all the poets. Well done. There are so many outstanding ones. Ones that are poignant; others that are humorous, and some that could make one cry.
I particularly liked Neena Singh’s spiderweb (although spiders creep me out totally); Pris Campbell’s the sound of her voice; Sari Grandstaff’s the child to mention only a few.
Thanks Alex and crew for including one of mine in this collection.
Thanks dear Nancy for your appreciation. We call this web a “Maya Jaal” a web of illusion which holds us all captive even though we know it’s reality…ephemeral as dew.
Thank you Nancy! ✌🏼
Thank you Geoff!
Many thanks, Alex, for considering and including my haiku. For me, it is quite the honor.
What an immense theme this week! And especially tricky because of course none of us will, or will be able to, witness the end of the universe which is predicted to be slow, gradual and never-ending. So a lot of us metaphorized it into something a little closer to home. Thank you for including mine. Here are some that I thought hinted at the scale and enormity of the theme:
the Universe almost done making stars a tourist leaves – Alan Summers
a spider’s universe dew-filled – Neena Singh
night night
the music box
stops – Tim Cremin
afternoon walk
a poem she starts to sense
drowns in dimsey light – Amanda White (I think the third line is a pretty accurate description of what the end of the universe will be like)
starry night
fades into
obsidian – Kathleen Mazurowski (This is the end of the universe, and beautiful)
moonlit walk
I become the shadow
becomes me – Mona Bedi
Honoured to feature in your list of favorites. Many thanks!
Thank you so much Alex for including my poem! Love your weekly prompts that made my knowledge of the universe a little richer.
Congratulations to all featured poets! Many thanks also to kjmunro and Lori.
Thank you Alex for including my haiku. Congratulations to everyone here! A terrific selection of haiku on impermanence with which to end our Haiku Dialogue of 2021! Much appreciation for Alex’s editing of this weekly feature. Thank you Kathy and Lori for steering the Haiku Dialogue ship so well. Looking forward to continuing our haiku dialogue in 2022.
Thank you Alex for including mine!
Congratulations to all poets!
Many thanks to KJ and Lori for their continued great work.
conhandyoulations, Robert!👏🏻
Thank you Geoff.!