HAIKU DIALOGUE – Finding peace and contemplation… in hidden corners – Photo Five & Introduction to door to door

Finding peace and contemplation… in hidden corners – Photo Five & Introduction to door to door

Thanks to Guest Editor Marietta McGregor for these last few weeks of peace & contemplation – to be continued later in the year – something we can all look forward to! For now, I am stepping back in as Editor, so please note that our submission deadline will change to Pacific Daylight Time…

Introduction to door to door

With a nod to ‘Haiku Windows’, a past feature from when I first began this column, & also an idea suggested a long time ago by poet Laurie Greer, for the next several weeks we will explore some concepts relating to doors. (My photograph, from which the banner to be used at the top of each post for this series was created, was taken at a campground at Marsh Lake, Yukon Territory – the creatives who arranged this tree trunk door display are unknown.) Be inspired by the prompts – I can’t wait to read where they take you – & please note that there is no requirement to include the words of the prompt in the poems… enjoy!

A friendly reminder that all poems & images appearing in Haiku Dialogue may not be used elsewhere without express permission – copyright is retained by the creators… kj

next week’s theme: revolving door

A revolving door is a sectioned door that turns around a central axis, & it is also an expression to describe things that come & go – usually to do with a situation, often within an organization…

I look forward to reading your submissions.

The deadline is midnight Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday April 10 2021.

Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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 Marietta’s commentary for Photo Five – leafy trellis:

Today’s commentary is both a happy and sad time for me. I’ve had the immense pleasure of being your Guest Editor for seven weeks, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of time spent with you and your poems. You’ve supported me with a great collection of work which made each week something to look forward to. This week is no exception. Your haiku capture scents, movement, sounds and colour from many places you’ve obviously known and (mostly) enjoyed. Some also include beloved family as well as places. You dance, flirt, wander and dream under arbours everywhere. While this is my last week for now, thanks to Kathy, Lori and Jim I hope to return later this year with my photo prompts on finding peace and contemplation in many places. Meanwhile, thank you all for being part of Haiku Dialogue and I look forward to reading the wonderful haiku you share here. Happy writing!

father’s tulips
their sway still in me
spring breeze

Stephen A. Peters
Bellingham, Wa. USA

A haiku which bridges seasons and generations, this gentle poem to me holds a sense of how open-ended our existence really is. I imagine what it would be like to be able to see tulips in a garden planted by one’s parent blooming in a later spring, perhaps after that parent is no longer with us. The poet sees the graceful movement of the leaves and this is enough to trigger memories which may go back many years, even to childhood. It is not colour which is remembered, but movement. The tulip’s sway could be the exuberant backyard play of a youngster with their father. Do flowers and poet still live in that same garden, or does the poet carefully lift each spent tulip bulb each year and carry precious memories to new gardens? The haiku brings to mind another fine poem about plums in a father’s orchard by Michael McClintock, which was commented on in re: Virals 204 on The Haiku Foundation’s pages (https://thehaikufoundation.org/revirals-204/).

every month
I travel in another garden—
wall calendar

Daniela Lăcrămioara Capotă
Romania

Oh, don’t many of us relate to this haiku right now? The pages of my 2020 calendar were hardly turned, but when I did flip over I was rewarded with another image of a beautiful Australian bird. While many people rely for their connections and appointments on mobile media, some of us still follow an older tradition of hanging an annual calendar beside the telephone or in the kitchen, just after (never before) New Year’s Day. The poet has hung a calendar of garden scenes or landscapes from places that may have been visited in the past, or are on the bucket list for future travel. Each turn of the page is a moment to dream of a different reality, one beyond the mundane, that can transport the poet to a longed-for place of enjoyment and escape – ‘another garden’.

coming or going
above the lock-down
wild geese

Anna Yin
Ontario, Canada

This beautiful airy poem is also about freedom to dream, I think. A whole year of life is embodied here in just a few words. The sounds and movements of a flock of geese are noted as they go about their normal annual migration. This has always taken place high in the air and will go on regardless of what happens to us earthbound and landlocked humans. Issa wrote a poem about wild geese, beseeching them not to cry as everything in the world was the same. Flocks fly high above in the blue, leaving then returning, and as in Mary Oliver’s well-loved poem, “Wild Geese,” the world goes on. To me, the haiku implies acceptance of a particular stage in life. While the poet may secretly yearn for the freedom to fly with the geese, just the knowledge that beyond any lockdowns life goes on will most likely prove a great comfort, and for the moment anyway, dreaming of future freedom may be enough.

garden trellis
what we do with the bare bones
of a story

Laurie Greer
Washington DC

I was drawn to this senryu-like poem because it made me stop and think of how important ideas really are in fleshing out a narrative. We can put together a great set of guidelines and develop a complicated and tricky framework of scenes and interactions, but without the vine the trellis looks a bit bare. Of course ‘what we do’ must depend on who we are – our history, our culture, our lived experiences, our dreams. Haiku is a bit like that too. We take an impression and reduce it to its essential images, then try to capture the essence in just a few words. Too few words or too many – always the question! The haiku could also refer to an even bigger picture. Our ‘story’ can be about our lives, which we either can pare down or live large. Over the past year some people from necessity or desire have begun to question how their lives are going, and to reassess where they’re headed. A quirky poem to think about and mull over.

below are the rest of the selections:

dark woods
only light can burrow
with the rabbits

Shalini Pattabiraman
United Kingdom

 

forest bathing—
I soak myself
in a bird song

Teji Sethi
India

 

chirping of the forest—
a glide from one pitch
to another

Danijela Grbelja
Croatia, Sibenik

 

many paths
to the summit 上 the crow
no one follows

simonj
UK

 

discovering the key
under a cracked pot
ancient wood

Robert Kingston
UK

 

ancient path
surrounded by songs
more ancient than this

Marina Bellini
Mantua

 

beach walk
a dove’s plumage
full of sand

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany

 

French Quarter
a courtyard garden
full of jazz

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

a ray of sun
filling in the cracks
broken flagstones

Tom Bierovic
DeLand, FL, USA

 

pulling aside a curtain
suddenly the sea—
hanging wisterias

Dennys Cambarau
Sardinia, Italy

 

backyard playhouse—
the fourth pillar
grandpa’s walking stick

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

fragrant wind
through the wisteria trellis—
milky way

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

alpine path
at each turn
a new flower

Olivier Schopfer
Switzerland

 

spring sun
in my ginko walk
i unpack myself

Lakshmi Iyer
Kerala, india

 

summer trellis
propping up the
insects’ hum

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

mountain inn
through the bamboo trellis fence
scent of onsen

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

shortcut . . . home
frozen . . . in time

Helen Buckingham
UK

 

COVID vaccine—
the path
much clearer now

Nick T
UK

 

wisteria trellis
my spring dreams find
a home

Hifsa Ashraf
Rawalpindi, Pakistan

 

shaking off shadows
I follow
the greener path

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

holy shrine
through the leafy trellis
mounting prayers

Richa Sharma
India

 

bird songs at dusk
the background chatter for miles
away on zoom

james Won
Los Angeles, California USA

 

morning garden
finding way around
the spiderwebs

Adjei Agyei-Baah
Kumasi, Ghana

 

leafy trellis—
the far echo
of peekaboo

Mirela Brăilean
Romania

 

so long
the air holds her fragrance—
slow walk

Kashinath Karmakar
Durgapur, India

 

a cathedral
500 years old—
redwood forest

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

spaces of blue
chasing
the birdsong

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

fallen tree buds
blown alongside the path
changing patterns

Debbie Feller
Illinois USA

 

hanging on the vine
the sweet and the bitter . . .
these memories

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

 

leafy trellis—
the home I never
built

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

dappled sunlight
under an arbor the beauty
of shifting moods

Paul Geiger
Sebastopol CA

 

dappled shade—
the stone path goes on
without us

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

beehives
in rural solitude
the smell of acacia

Zdenka Mlinar
Hrvatska

 

garden path
light and shade
pave the way

Neena Singh
Chandigarh, India

 

tiger swallowtail
pausing in our yard
everyone shuts up

Dana Rapisardi
United States

 

winding path . . .
where will a songbird
take us?

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Italy

 

Moonlight Sonata
i hear your footfalls
vanishing

Meera Rehm
UK

 

aspro cammino—
nel giardino d’ortensie
i giorni del perdono

rough path—
in the hydrangea garden
the days of forgiveness

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna ( Italia)

 

our patio tree
leafing out shade
April again

Ann K. Schwader
Westminster, CO

 

thinking
of grandma
passionflower garden

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

nightfall
under the vine pergola
some tango steps

Helga Stania
Switzerland

 

vine trellis . . .
the curl of her lips
when she says chianti

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh,India

 

lazy evening
I finally have to drink
my ice cream

Wiesław Karliński
Namysłów, Poland

 

morning delight
opening my door to
birds in the bottlebrush

Carol Reynolds
Australia

 

near the lake
a lost dream—
blackberry plant

vicino al lago
un sogno perduto—
pianta di more

Maria Teresa Piras
Serrenti – Italy

 

within seventeen
syllables
my little hideaway

Greer Woodward
Waimea, HI

 

old sanctuary . . .
I talk to the birds
already flown

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

passerines—
bursts of birdsong brightening
travellers

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

finding its way
upon the trellis—
the scent of lilac

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

pergola . . .
grandma still tells
the same story

pergolato . . . nonna racconta ancora la stessa storia

Lucia Cardillo
Rodi (FG) Italy

 

dappled alley
smells of seasoned trash

martin gottlieb cohen
Egg Harbor, NJ

 

seeping through
this clematis trellis . . .
a sparrow’s song

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

gnarled limbs
what-ifs
flutter in the breeze

Margaret Walker
Lincoln, NE, USA

 

mountain path . . .
birdsong
fills my footsteps

Carol Judkins
Carlsbad, CA

 

orange blossoms . . .
breaking the glass
beneath the chuppah

(chuppah: jewish wedding arbor)

Michele L. Harvey
Hamilton NY, USA

 

a curved footpath—
empty spaces between
here and there

Kashiana Singh
Chicago

 

hedgehog’s burrow—
finding at dusk the debris
of lost emotions

Luisa Santoro
Rome, Italy

 

queen’s wreath—
we pretend it’s
mistletoe

P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada

 

blind curve
ahead
retirement

Susan Farner
USA

 

overgrown arbor
just enough grapes to share
with the birds

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

trellis of shadows . . .
my thoughts practice
bungee jumps

Ivan Gaćina
Zadar, Croatia

 

Serenity House
the sound of the fountain
near mother’s room

Kath Abela Wilson
USA

 

following my path
one birdsong
at a time

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

tea in summer—
light leaking
through the leaves

Pippa Phillips
USA

 

between breaths—
a sparrow’s song

Barrie Levine
Wenham MA USA

 

island hopping
summer vacation
on an empty calendar

Didimay D. Dimacali
United States

 

grandfather’s vineyard . . .
in the labyrinth of leaves
imagining fairy tales

Elisa Allo
Switzerland

Guest editor Marietta McGregor is a fourth-generation Tasmanian who has made her home between Australia’s national capital Canberra and the scenic south coast of New South Wales for over four decades. A lover of the natural world since childhood, she went on to study botany and zoology, and has worked as palynologist, garden designer, science journalist, editor, university tutor, education manager, and grants developer for the national wildlife collection. A photography and travel enthusiast since retiring, she enjoys capturing fine detail of fleeting moments. She came late to haiku, which appealed for its close observation and poetic expression of ephemeral experience. Her haiku, haibun and haiga have been widely published, have won awards and appear in anthologies.

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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Please note that all poems & images appearing in Haiku Dialogue may not be used elsewhere without express permission – copyright is retained by the creators. Please see our Copyright Policies.