HAIKU DIALOGUE – Mountain and River – Mountains

Many thanks to Guest Editor Alex Fyffe for an exceptional encore performance. Now we welcome Guest Editor Lakshmi Iyer, who takes us on a journey celebrating the outdoors – happy writing! kj

Mountain and River with Guest Editor Lakshmi Iyer

Mountain is benchmark for patience, resilience and tolerance. Whether heat or cold, fire or melting ice, whatever may be the extreme opposites, mountain bears them all silently and effectively.
If Man has to exaggerate anything to larger proportions, it is often compared with mountains. There is a proverb “Making mountains out of molehills”. Hence, mountain is always at the highest peak whether for patience, height, size.
Mountains cannot be moved easily. They are fixed, steady and unwavering. That is why it is probably said – Prayers can move even mountains. Which implies that mountains can be conquered only through prayers and not through force.
Well, some of you may argue that mountains too get destroyed, but it may be an indirect force through Man’s negligence to maintain a balance in the surrounding physical structure or its geological strength.

River is symbolic of extending help to anyone who comes in contact with it, as it has cleansing properties. River always tries to clean up everything on the way, even rocks get cleared, and it helps them glitter. Though Man pollutes river in all possible ways, river never pollutes Man. River helps ever, hurts never.
Here again, one may point out that a river in spate can destroy whatever comes in its way, but this too may be an indirect manmade issue.
River doesn’t depend on anyone for its journey towards its destination. It finds its own way to march towards the ocean or sea or whatever. If any obstacle is found on its path, it changes directions to reach the goal.
Flow of thoughts is often compared with the flow of river. If a thought arises in someone’s mind, there are two options before him. He can visualise the thought as a river flowing and decide to plunge into the river or observe the river flowing towards its destination. If he plunges into the river, action follows, as thoughts become words and deeds. On the other hand, if he doesn’t plunge into the river, but only observes it flowing towards the ocean, no consequence follows. There is stillness of the mind, he is in a state of meditation. Thus, river and its flow can help mankind to understand the process of meditating on the Supreme Consciousness.

I shall be extremely happy if you would give me a homework to dig deep inside your poems. It can be simple and sincere, setting aside all those mind-boggling thoughts. Just be you! Just live your poems!

prompt: Mountains

* Listen to the echoes of the story of God and Guard that rises a civilization, lives a religion and sustains a tribe
* It doesn’t always have to be the mountain of your choice; it can be the mountain that gave you a name in this life
* What about the valleys that cut deep gorges of courage over grief and pain
* And what about the flora and fauna, food and festivals
* Climb the mountain of your choice, give it a name and explore the poems that will hold you here right away
* The names of mountains are very much needed to create an overall sense of responsibility towards nature!!

The deadline is midnight Eastern Standard Time, Saturday March 8, 2025.

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 & residence as you would like it to appear in the column. 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.

Join us next week for Lakshmi’s selection of poems on the topic of Mountains…

Bios:

Guest Editor Lakshmi Iyer lives in her world bound with duties to her mother and grand twins. Her voluntary services to under-middle-class girls nurturing their needs remain in the good books of the families. Her haikai journey has seen the worst of rejections and the best of acceptances. Her poems have found their own homes, and she profusely thanks the editors. Her dream to publish a book remains in her heart, soul and mind.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

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

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Photo Credits:

Banner photo credit: by Lalitha & Gnaneswar

Prompt photo credit:
prompt photo one – Mountains – by Lalitha & Gnaneswar

Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.