HAIKU DIALOGUE – Paradigm Shift – the silence of satellites

Paradigm Shift with Guest Editor Craig Kittner

“Learn about pines from the pine,” Bashō advised.

Why do you think he said that?

Animism is a birthright of haiku.

However, western culture, despite all its scientific knowledge, tends to put human experience on some rarefied plane, separate and above all the other beings and forces of the universe. An ego-laden, anthropocentric attitude that would write off learning from the pine as anthropomorphism and personification.

How does this impact your writing?

Can you shift your perspective away from the human and dress yourself in the consciousness of another form?

next week’s theme: the habitation of turtles

Land and water are equally crucial to the turtle. Is it more at home in one? Or does it dwell in some in-between?

The deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time, Saturday July 24, 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Please use the Haiku Dialogue submission form below to enter one or two original unpublished haiku inspired by the week’s theme, and then press Submit to send your entry.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 Craig’s commentary for the silence of satellites:

Haiku and the moon go hand in hand all the way back to the beginning.

And why not? The moon is an effective analogy for all the forces that have a strong influence on existence despite their silence.

And silence itself has so many implications beyond the absence of sound.

Now, with decades of our casting artificial satellites into orbit and our expanded knowledge of what’s out there, vast new fields of expression are open to us.

Our writing community has delivered plenty of paradigm shifting examples for your exploration.

watching over us
but no longer talking
Telstar

Mark Meyer
Mercer Island WA USA

Telstar 1 launched in 1962 and was the first satellite to broadcast telephone calls, among other things. This haiku wraps this history in a veil of mythology. Telstar as an estranged deity, a fitting symbol for our age.

satellite
transmitting voices
without a sound

Xiaoou Chen
Kunming, China

The paradox here underlines the irony of all these artifacts we’ve launched into orbit. Traveling the void they are inherently silent, yet they constantly flood the world with our babble.

new moon
on the pond
sound of silence

Teiichi Suzuki
Japan

This homage to Basho is deceiving in its simplicity. The new moon is a dark moon, difficult to perceive in the sky, much less in reflection on water. It sparks contemplation of the emergence of something out of an apparent nothingness.

satellite
the light of a firefly
in the bush

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

There’s an intriguing little mystery here. For me, it generates memories of the silence in which I discovered the joy of watching both fireflies and the night sky. And thoughts of how the female firefly is earthbound, while the male flies around her sharing signals of light.

observing in silence a satellite

Ingrid Baluchi
North Macedonia

A fine example of stark simplicity opening vistas of contemplation. Is the poet observing a satellite or is a satellite observing the poet? Or perhaps an act of solemnization is implied. A moment of silence under the ubiquitous presence of satellites.

isolation
channeling others’ voices
in the jealous void

Bruce Bynum
Baton Rouge, LA

How is a person like a satellite? A fine riddle for our times. Reading this haiku, my mind went immediately to lockdowns, and people in social media endlessly parroting the words of others. Ideas going viral.

& here are the rest of the selections:

the silence in which he grows full moon

Deborah Karl-Brandt
Bonn, Germany

 

we are mute and rust:
unreal television moons

Sarah Davies
Bedford, UK

 

graveyard orbit —
a satellite peacefully
put to rest

Teji Sethi
India

 

satellites
in muted terror
sky debris

Jeff Leong
Malaysia

 

beyond
the Milky Way
our heartbeat

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

a warm sea
roaring at the sky
… amavasya

*amavasya is no moon day

ಆಕಾಶದ ಮೇಲೆ
ಬೆಚ್ಚಗಿನ ಸಮುದ್ರದ ಗರ್ಜನೆ
… ಅಮಾವಾಸ್ಯೆ

Amrutha Prabhu
Bengaluru, India

 

train journey . . .
not leaving me alone
the cold moon

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

glass and silver spies
listening for intelligence
blue whalesong, faintly

Blake Thomas
UK

 

only the moon –
the sudden shadow
of a bat

Dennys Cambarau
Sardinia, Italy

 

satellites –
pretending
to be stars

Dan Campbell
Virginia

 

Google Earth
from his house to mine
the moon at each turn

Richa Sharma
India

 

all around
a grassy stillness …
shooting stars

tutto intorno
una quiete erbosa …
stelle cadenti

Daniela Misso
Italia

 

the moon passes-
a dream that drags on
without noise

Vincenzo Adamo
Sicily, Italy

 

silence: satellites colliding

Alan Peat
Biddulph, United Kingdom

 

a star caught
in the barbed wire-
silent earth

Nicole Pottier
France

 

chirps
from the plasma field
earth’s dawn

Sarah Metzler
United States

 

a silence so deep
it deafens
the man in the moon

Tracy Davidson
Warwickshire, UK

 

starless night erasing messages from the past

Hemapriya Chellappan
India

 

river waters—
the moon’s silent ride
to the ocean

दरिया का पानी
चन्द्रमा की शांत सवारी
सागर की ओर

Arvinder Kaur
Chandigarh, India

 

reflection pond
the moon’s silence
broken by koi

Richard Matta
San Diego, California

 

night sky
satellites are up there
as if not

Zelyko Funda
Hrvatska

 

hidden
light years away
the sound of star birth

Pat Davis
Pembroke, NH USA

 

observing our planet
a satellite goes silent

Marion Clarke
Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland

 

the floating
sheer bulk in silence
picks all sound

Hla Yin Mon
Yangon, Myanmar

 

satellite launch
flying in the face
of a cosmic silence

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

 

star to star
their unheard whirling
jazz on TV

Alfred Booth
Colombes, France

 

man in the moon
the strong
silent type

Susan Farner
United States

 

human remains–
the unblinking eyes
of satellites

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

news flash—
a distant satellite
mutely blinks

Claire Ninham
North Yorkshire, UK

 

Snap of
umbilical chord
moon lights up my lap

Priti Khullar
Noida, India

 

solar winds
the silent shuffle
of space debris

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois USA

 

outer space
all of our secrets
finally silenced

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Huntsville, Alabama

 

no fanfare
death moon

Helen Buckingham
United Kingdom

 

all night
without a word
the glimmer of stars

Keith Evetts
Thames Ditton UK

 

space-
the silence of
separation

Dorothy Burrows
United Kingdom

 

the moon wafts
in and out of clouds …
parting a veil

Priti Aisola
Hyderabad, India

 

day moon…
my silent companion
from the funeral

Ed Bremson
Raleigh, NC

 

solitary amid a noisy fest sister moon

Luisa Santoro
Rome, Italy

 

satellites
circling the sun
how long is a year?

Lafcadio Orlovsky
USA

 

atmospheric silence
a last moment
before re-entry

Sari Grandstaff
Saugerties, NY

 

whispering nautilus
the astronaut dreams
of the sea

Greer Woodward
Waimea, HI

 

graveyard orbit . . .
a trail of silence
rings the planet

Barrie Levine
Wenham MA USA

 

looking back
from our moon
the din of silence

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA

 

space debris
photons spangling the void
we fall into

John Hawkhead
UK

Craig Kittner has lived a lot of places. Fourteen at last count. He was reared, for a while, in Illinois. Then North Carolina. Providence saw the start of some interesting things that DC helped solidify. Now he lives kind of near the sea and is compelled to ramble and write.

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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