HAIKU DIALOGUE – Finding peace and contemplation… Photo One

Welcome to Finding Peace and Contemplation… in small things 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: Photo Two – milkweed pod

This mature milkweed pod grew in heritage grounds at Fruita, in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. Lush green orchards established by migrating homesteaders in 1881 and surrounded by huge cottonwoods form a startling juxtaposition against desert-varnished red rock canyon walls. Climate change with more erratic rainfall and higher summer temperatures poses a future challenge. Milkweed nourishes monarch butterflies, and the burst pod is one element in their migratory cycle. The image could be said to have wabi sabi — the simple and short-lived beauty of worn, weathered and decaying things. Transience has always been a rich source for haiku. I look forward to your responses to the image and how small things can embody change, imperfection, or impermanence.

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday February 13, 2021.

Please submit one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme by clicking here: Contact Form.  Please put Haiku Dialogue in the Subject box, & include your name as you would like it to appear, & your place of residence, with your poem.

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 One – bee in blossom:

First of all, my deep bow of thanks to participating poets for your perceptive and lively responses to my prompt. I very much enjoyed reading all your poems — a fine welcome for me! There were many more poems I would have liked to include in this week’s collection. Scent, taste and sound as well as visual imagery were used to good effect. A recurrent theme was concern for bees and the role they play in nature. Several haiku made me laugh out loud with their wry humour. Many consider lightheartedness as well as lightness to be essential characteristics of haiku and senryu. We see gentle humour in many of Issa’s haiku — for example, when he writes that even when lit by a harvest moon his house is trashy. In this week’s offers, garden parties recurred as a theme, with lots of conversation and interactions between guests. Some poets riffed away from the bee image to vegetables, damson fruit, snails, owls and other garden delights, often in happy colours of yellow and red. And you saw the sensual side of honeypots, too! I’m glad so many find peace and contemplation in small things.

bees om
blossom

Helen Buckingham

Helen Buckingham’s haiku worked well for me on several levels. The word ‛blossom’ has been deconstructed, resulting in a form I would liken to a ‛concrete’ or ‛visual’ haiku. Repeated aloud, the poem’s internal assonance and use of sibilants give it the lulling sensation of a mantra or incantation. Mantras are used to aid concentration, to help focus the mind. Like a mantra, the bees’ buzz is all-pervasive and mesmerising, as anyone who has stood in a field of flowering lavender will agree. In the three words of this striking poem, the poet brings an image to life with spareness and simplicity.

summer’s amber drift
a bee bumbles about
my hawaiian shirt

John Hawkhead

This poem amused me by the picture it conjures up. I can clearly see that vivid tropical shirt! It’s probably splashed with large red hibiscus flowers a bee would find very alluring. We’ve all seen bees bumbling about colourful objects which have no nectar or pollen. After a while they move on, but it can be disconcerting if they hang around so it’s best to stay still until they realise there’s nothing for them and they leave. The kigo fragment, ‛summer’s amber drift’, aptly conveys a sense of languid warmth and relaxation. And amber is the colour of the bee. Perhaps the poet has dozed off in a garden chair, only to wake up and find they’re now a bee magnet. An enjoyable haiku.

visiting mom
the subtle taste of cardamom
in my tea

Nisha Raviprasad

I kept being drawn back to this haiku which works for me on several levels. The bee visiting a blossom is transformed into an individual visiting a parent, maybe at the end of a busy working week. A relaxing cup of tea, taken with a little sugar and in company of someone dear, can taste like nectar. I also love cooking curries. Cardamom is a beautiful and expensive spice known as the Queen of Spices. It comes in the form of small plump green or dark pods containing knobbly brown seeds, or as powdered spice. Originating in India, it’s deeply flavoured with a sweet, smoky, almost myrtaceous aroma, and can be used in savoury or sweet dishes. Scents are very evocative of place and time. We’re drawn to them by association. Drinking tea with a parent, the poet detects a familiar spice redolent of her mother’s home, and this to me imbues the haiku with a feeling of continuity and hence, well-being.

in the park
someone practices piccolo
pink plum buds

Kit Nagamura

This haiku combines colour with music in a delightfully light and jaunty way. The piccolo is the smallest of the woodwinds, and is played similarly to a flute. Its original name in Italian is flauto piccolo, small flute, and it is pitched one octave higher than a flute. What a perfect instrument to play among the blossoming plums! With the use of assonance, the poet evokes the lightly tripping melody (pink notes?) of the little piccolo drifting through the budding trees, foreshadowing the fleeting dance of the blossoms when the wind takes them. Another good haiku to read aloud.

Below in no particular order are all the other selections for this week. I hope you enjoy reading them — do please feel free to add your own responses to the poems by posting a comment.

below are the rest of the selections:

garden walk
the sparrows teach me
perfect pitch

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, CA USA

 

park picnic
flower heads bobbing
with bees

Marion Clarke

 

a drunken bee—
from flower to flower
homecoming

Dennys Cambarau
Sardinia, Italy

 

biology class
does the bee know
that it is in the textbook

Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

 

the pulse
in a bumblebee’s wing
scent of roses

getaran
pada sayap seekor lebah
aroma mawar

Agus Maulana Sunjaya
Tangerang, Indonesia

 

collapsing hut
nest of wild bees
under the roof

Tsanka Shishkova

 

closed gate
a small cloud
of ladybirds

Helga Stania

 

unwrapping the gifts
they leave behind . . .
owl pellets

Carol Jones

 

a corner of calm
after the chaos . . .
peace garden

Tracy Davidson
UK

 

wisteria pergola—
the sweet chirping
between words

Daniela Misso
Italy

 

in the garden
lost among the flowers . . .
my worries

Nick T
UK

 

fresh cut flowers—
the bee outside
befuddled by glass

Helen Ogden

 

scent of flowers
sweetness of honey
when we first met

Vishnu Kapoor

 

foxgloves . . .
a bumble bee
wiggles inside

Marilyn Ashbaugh
Gulf Stream, Florida

 

settling sun
trapped in the tapper’s gourd
a bee’s song

Adjei Agyei-Baah
Kumasi, Ghana

 

spring rains
her bucket
full of snails

Ben Oliver

 

from blossom to blossom
to my yellow blouse
honeybees

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA

 

winter afternoon
watching poppy flowers
chase the sun

Rehn Kovacic

 

lavender bush the sting last spring

Madhuri Pillai

 

bee-stung lips
everyone pouts
in a selfie

Vandana Parashar

 

sun-back dress
all the gathers
in her mother’s pattern

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

a blooming gladiola—
so much work
for a bee!

Tomislav Maretić

 

so fragrant
a flower that I don’t know
along the road

così profumato
un fiore che non so
lungo la strada

Maria Teresa Piras

 

picking flowers . . .
the honeybee shows me
a better way

Pat Davis

 

sweet-tasting honey
a favorite of humans
and Winnie the Pooh

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

bee swarm—
the distant buzzes and hums
of an air-conditioner

Taofeek Ayeyemi
Abeokuta, Nigeria

 

falling cherry blossom
the moon filling
the space between

Michelle Beyers

 

white poppies
stained with pollen—
spring fever

Carole MacRury

 

summer moon
flitting around flowerpots
a hummingbird moth

Tomislav Sjekloća
Cetinje, Montenegro

 

daisies . . .
the sunlight vibrates
with first bee

margherite . . . la luce del sole vibra con la prima ape

Lucia Cardillo

 

soba—
snow of buckwheat
chef’s zen

Sarika Jaswani

 

sun on lavender—
bees hum away
my blues

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

holding their head high
a bouquet of mums
at the fertility clinic

Sandra St-Laurent
Yukon (Canada)

 

empty bird’s nest
next summer’s
morning songs

Greer Woodward
Waimea, HI

 

spring signs—
the stinging remark
of my baby girl

Luisa Santoro

 

raspberry patch
a bumblebee rests
on my sleeve

Gary Evans

 

blossom viewing
the lyth valley damsons
all for one bee

simonj UK

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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