HAIKU DIALOGUE – Finding peace and contemplation… in the great outdoors… by water

Finding peace and contemplation… in the great outdoors with Guest Editor Marietta McGregor

At times in our lives, fast-moving events of our day-to-day existence may become overwhelming. Between work and family responsibilities, daily needs and doomscrolling, days rush by in a breakneck blur and we sometimes end the week with a sense of ‘where did that go?’ We’re surrounded by the wonders of our shared universe. Maybe it’s time to become immersed in the enjoyment of one aspect of this spectacular world which amazes, delights and refreshes us. We can marvel at the night sky or clouds by day, cheer a ladybug as it climbs a twig and opens its wings, dangle our feet in a cool river, rest in a tree’s benevolent shade, stroke velvety green moss, smell ozone freshness at the coast, crunch through frosty grass, listen to morning birdsong, taste a last autumn apple. Small pauses in quotidian life may be devoted to living slower, using every sense, and sharing our pleasure through poetry. Simple gifts.

Each week for the next few weeks there will be a photographic prompt on the theme of ‘Finding peace and contemplation. . .’ with images capturing moments when we might seek inspiration if the going gets tough. I look forward to reading your personal response to the moments you’ve discovered.

next week’s theme: in the great outdoors watching clouds

Clouds have had whole books written about how and why they form. From clouds come rain, lightning, hail and snow and their shapes are often predictors of tomorrow’s weather. Children love finding patterns in them, like animals and faces. This photo was taken on a road in Outback New South Wales, Australia, at daybreak. I’d taken a few shots and just then sunlight broke through the clouds and I took this photo. The beams of light spilling out are an optical illusion called crepuscular rays. Some people call them “fingers of God”, “Buddha’s rays” or “Jacob’s ladder”. Do you have a favourite place where you watch clouds? What thoughts do they inspire? You’re invited to share your haiku about clouds this week.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday August 7, 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Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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 in the great outdoors by water:

Hello again! It’s my great pleasure to be with you for the next few weeks as Haiku Dialogue’s guest editor. This week we’ve sought peace and contemplation outdoors, by water. For some of you, sounds bring back memories of childhood and a loved one’s voice. For others, plunging into the sea, river or lake is sheer hedonistic enjoyment. Some poems addressed childhood pleasures like seashell and beach glass collecting and sand castle building. You commemorated weddings and break-ups, childhood and old age, memories and changes. Animals from seals and otters to bird dogs featured. Some found darkness in the brightness of water. I read all your poems with pleasure. I found myself returning again and again to some haiku. When making difficult final choices, I looked for freshness of expression and different ways of seeing. I hope you enjoy this week’s collection.

stick in hand
her mother’s simple pleasure
freeing stuck water

Mike Gallagher
Lyreacrompaane, Ireland

This haiku was one which I returned to a number of times. The words ‘stuck water’ puzzled me at first, then I tried to enter the scene: a woman on a beach at low tide or by a stream with muddy banks. She has a stick she picked up while walking. The ebbing tide traps dead-end runnels in the sand or mud. Many of us as we get older still do childish things like jumping over cracks in the pavement. The pleasure of letting water free seems child-like, like skipping stones, so the enjoyment is understandable. Or does this haiku have a more poignant meaning? Has a daughter brought her mother to a place she loves where she can once again be the child she was? Her pleasure comes from a small act, drawing a groove in soft sand so the water runs away. A thoughtful haiku which conveys sadness.

I try to catch
dad’s smile—
fly-fishing

Melanie Vance
USA

A poem that made me smile. Anyone who knows, or is related to, an angler who fly-fishes may be acquainted with an onlooker’s feelings for this all-absorbing hobby. First there is the intricacy of fly-tying, after first gathering the precise type and colour of fur or feather each fly requires. Then the choice of stream, based on exactly when and where local aquatic bugs are on the rise. Considerable patience can be required. So here we have a doughty angler absorbed in his pursuit, with his child at his side. Maybe the child is also fishing, because dad has brought them along and wants to instil his passion in his offspring. The poet writes from the child’s perspective. I liked the choice of ‘catch’ here. Maybe the fish aren’t biting and dad is making cast after cast, perfecting the perfect placement of his lure. The child may be casting a fly, too, but a parental smile not a fish is what she or he wants most. If dad is totally preoccupied, the child may be waiting a while for their hoped-for catch.

lay offs
retracing my steps
on the white beach

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

Around the world, people are facing serious disruption to their working lives. In L1, the poet sets the scene for us. People have lost their jobs and livelihoods, temporarily or for good. Many have to find other ways of making ends meet. Some can make the transition to a different and new reality. Others re-evaluate where their life has been going, as this haiku says to me in ‘retracing my steps’. The poet could intend ‘white beach’ to signify the optimistic hope that all will be well, or it could mean that what lies ahead is a blank, very different to what has come before. I found this haiku to be a haunting reminder of how we cannot take anything for granted any more. The juxtaposition has the effect of underlining a sense of uncertainty.

downstream
how quickly the last part
of our journey

Eva Limbach
Deutschland

Another haiku which muses on the passage of time, this time moving from the flow of a river to the flow of our lives. We can be coasting along thinking we have all the time in the world. Then there comes the sudden realisation that time seems to behave in different ways, depending on whether you’re a child in a dull lesson that drags on endlessly, someone living in lockdown as many have experienced in the past year, or someone moving into older age. We could commiserate with the poet that time seems to be rushing by too fast and we would like it to slow down, or we could be happy because a less-than-ideal period is quickly approaching an end. Either way, the poet does not try to tell us what to think, but presents us with an idea, and how we interpret that depends on us and the time of our lives. To me the poem conveys a calm feeling of acceptance.

& here are the rest of the selections:

winter beach
my thoughts escape
on the crests of the waves

Vincenzo Adamo
Sicily Italy

 

lovers by a lake
the autumn wind
ruffles my memories

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

a stone
ripples in
my mind

ಒಂದು ಕಲ್ಲು
ನನ್ನ ಮನಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ
ತರಂಗಗಳು

Amrutha Prabhu
Bengaluru, India

 

holding on
the swell of our bodies
with each wave

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

beach walk
footprints going nowhere
both ways

Terri French
RV, USA

 

my favorite
confession booth—
under a waterfall

Dan Campbell
Virginia USA

 

late bloomer
I learn to skip my stone
seven times

Anitha Varma
Kerala, India

 

driftwood
slowly, i let go
my existence

Lakshmi Iyer
India

 

disturbed water
a lone goose honks
behind the skein

Robert Kingston
Chelmsford, UK

 

gravel beach
spilling iodine blue
through storm clouds

John Hawkhead
UK

 

Buttermere
my nephew mutates
into a mud monster

(Buttermere is in the Lake District in North West England (Cumbria). There are two possible origins for the name “Buttermere”: “The lake by the dairy pastures” (from Old English “butere mere”); or it might be an Old Norse personal name “Buthar”, as in “Buthar’s mere” (lake). This accords with local tradition, which says that the valley of Buttermere was part of the holdings of an 11th-century Norse chieftain.)

Alan Summers
England

 

a splash—
enough to unfasten
the moon in circles

Mirela Brăilean
Romania

 

turn of the tide my worries washed out to sea

Pris Campbell
Lake Worth, FL

 

July afternoon
a brook trout swims
through the clouds

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

distant waves—
sea glass shining
on the beach

Daniela Misso
Italia

 

high tide
almost touching my tent
a curious seal

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

evening calm
a raft of otters
cradled in kelp

Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, CA

 

dog paddle
the retriever wins
again

Pam Joy
Dyea, Alaska

 

skipping stones
we discuss our
impending divorce

Rehn Kovacic
Mesa, AZ

 

twilight rising tide . . .
we build the sand castle
without a moat

Richard Matta
San Diego, California

 

dripping duckless penitent passant cockerpoo

simonj
UK

 

morning breeze—
marsh harriers
airbrushing reeds

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

river at dawn—
a heron spears
the silence

Nick T
Somerset, UK

 

mom’s dementia
the ebb and flow of emotions
inside her

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

scattering ashes . . .
leaves cross over
from the far bank

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

bird bath
i give the robins
human names

Michael Morell
Philadelphia, PA

 

the puppy diving
off a craggy cliff
my held breath

Kanjini Devi
The Far North, Aotearoa NZ

 

on the billow
a surfer tumbling
head over heels

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

 

first visitor
sneaking on the beach—
cold wind

Nicole Pottier
France

 

mountain stream
rounding off the edges
of my temper

Vandana Parashar
India

 

kettle pond
perfecting
my back stroke

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

first swim
the baby’s cry
dissolves

Sanela Plisko
Croatia

 

beach wedding
the waves gift
a star fish

Minal Sarosh
Ahmedabad, India

 

waterfall snack
a butterfly tastes
my sticky finger

Edna Beers
Rensselaer, NY, USA

 

hot springs
our first getaway—
taking the plunge

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

strong winds
the firmness of a banyan
on the riverbank

Manoj Sharma
Kathmandu, Nepal

 

sailboats docked
in summer mist
aquarelle

Alfred Booth
Colombes, France

 

spring thaw
the emerald edges
of Lake Louise

Carol Judkins
Carlsbad, CA

 

lapping sound
of night waves . . .
we remember mother

Madhuri Pillai
Australia

 

oyster in a half shell
the ocean
in one bite

Bona M. Santos
Los Angeles, CA

 

roaring seashore
the tracks of a tortoise
filled with moonlight

Adjei Agyei-Baah
Ghana/New Zealand

 

burying dad
to his neck in the sand
squawking seagulls

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

angling in the lake
grandpa counts the clouds
caught in the hook

Mona Iordan
Romania

 

the whole sky
my whole world
floating in solitude

Ingrid Baluchi
Ohrid, North Macedonia

 

placid lake
the lives
I step into

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Banten, Indonesia

 

fireflies by a lake
on a canvas
urban fantasies

Zahra Mughis
Lahore, Pakistan

 

water lilies
i am
floating

Sarah Metzler
United States

 

leaf watching . . .
kaleidoscopic swirls
settle my mind

Claire Ninham
North Yorkshire, UK

 

Carlingford Lough
our children net green crabs
and sunshine

Marion Clarke
Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland

 

mountain streamlet . . .
caught in an swirling eddy
golden aspen leaves

Al W Gallia
Lafayette, Louisiana USA

 

sunday noon . . .
busy with a castle
those tiny palms

Devoshruti Mandal
Varanasi, India

 

winter beach bare feet skirt the swash

Margaret Walker
Lincoln, NE, USA

 

adrift . . .
floral offerings
in a river

Priti Aisola
Hyderabad, India

 

first light
we flock to save
the stranded dolphin

Xenia Tran
Nairn, Scotland

 

prized shells
little toddler’s eyes
light up

Sherry Grant
Auckland, New Zealand

 

staying up all night . . .
the time we watched the sun rise
over the ocean

Ed Bremson
North Carolina

 

retention pond
a concert twanged
by frogs

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
USA

 

sea breeze . . .
a distant summer
I can’t forget

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore
Catania (Italy)

 

ocean waves—
last year’s footsteps
in my diary

Ana Drobot
Romania

 

droplets
slipping through mist
canoe paddle

Lorraine A. Padden
San Diego, CA USA

 

shadow on water
a dragonfly puzzled
by its own wings

Kath Abela Wilson
United States

 

flipping a canoe
on sand
the weight of yesterday’s rain

Barrie Levine
Wenham MA USA

 

park bench
she watches the sun melt
into the lake

Nancy Brady
Huron, Ohio, USA

 

reflection
of the great blue heron
morning sun

John S Green
United States

 

whale watching—
a boy asks the captain about
reincarnation

P. H. Fischer
Vancouver, Canada

 

seaside dusk
a smell of roasting corn
mingles with the damp

Sushama Kapur
Pune, India

 

body surfing
nothing between
me and the wave

Tim Cremin
Massachusetts

 

salt breeze
a line of sailboats
under the horizon

Deborah P Kolodji
Temple City, California

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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