HAIKU DIALOGUE – Sanctuary of the Senses – Sound and/or Sight – commentary

Sanctuary of the Senses with Guest Editor Carole MacRury

As haiku poets, we are familiar with being out in nature, living in the present moment awake to all sensory input, sight, sound, scent, touch, and taste. Sensory experiences can regulate the nervous system and support physical and mental health. Sensory practices and rituals can strengthen mind-body connections and regulate hormones to ease anxiety. I, myself, found ways to utilize the senses to remove debilitating anxiety attacks in my youth. Today, children identified as having sensory sensitivities receive treatment early on to help them process what can be overwhelming or underwhelming sensory responses. My own grandchild successfully underwent sensory processing treatment as a toddler.

A sanctuary is a place of refuge that offers safety and respite from the stresses of our lives, be it within our own homes, a bird sanctuary, a holy place, or at the kitchen table of a dear friend. A sanctuary is personal to each of us. We bring to these sanctuaries our senses whether it is our favorite color, a hot bath, a massage, favorite music, a cup of warm tea, or a hug from a loved one. Our ways and means are endless and unique. Our two prompts will invite you to discover the ways you create your own sanctuary of the senses to cope with the daily stresses of life and to enhance your own well-being.

Below is Carole’s commentary for Sound and/or Sight:

My thanks to each poet for trusting me with your poems. It was a pleasure to offer my thoughts as to the merits of your poems and the reason they brought me so much pleasure! Forgive any liberties, as these are my thoughts and may not reflect the poet’s intentions. Such is poetry. Deep thanks to KJ Munro, and Lori Zajkowski, for their support and quiet work behind the scenes, and to The Haiku Foundation for offering this haven for all students of haiku.

noon siesta. . .
the clock’s pendulum
slows down

Neena Singh
India

I had an immediate visceral reaction to this poem. A ‘noon siesta’ suggests escape from the hottest time of day, high noon. I imagine a darkened room, a slowing down of one’s heartbeat and respiration as one slips into sleep. The idea of a pendulum is hypnotizing as well. Whether the pendulum was really slowing down due to a loss of mechanical energy, who knows? Perhaps it’s the sound of the pendulum drifting away as the person slips into an altered state of consciousness. This poem not only spoke to the theme of sanctuary, but through sound, became a mantra for readers to experience a sense of time itself, slowing down.

mountain porch … stargazing into trilling katydids

John Zheng
Mississippi

The setting of a ‘mountain porch’ drew me right into this poem. It suggests a relaxed night of stargazing at high elevation with the stars so close one feels they might reach out and touch them. I appreciate the musicality through the repetition of the consonant sound ‘t’ in ‘stargazing into trilling katydids’. Also, the onomatopoeia of ‘trilling’ which mimics the sound of the katydids. But what really makes this one special is the use of synesthesia where one sense blends into another. I felt this right away as if the sound of the katydids and the sight of the stars became one, as if the stars themselves were trilling. Only six words but an amazing use of technique makes this monoku sing.

late summer dusk I slip into a subsong

Corine Timmer
Faro, Portugal

The alliteration of ‘summer/slip/subsong’ is music to my ears. The setting itself offers a certain mood, ‘late summer dusk’. Just as the sun slips away, so too does the poet slip away into ‘subsong’ at day’s end. The prefix “sub” suggests an undercurrent of sound. Subsong refers to the quiet low-pitched babbling of young birds but can also refer to the unstructured low-pitched humming of humans. This is both self-soothing and calming and I recognized it as something I do myself. I can certainly feel a sense of sanctuary in this monoku.

not synchronizing
even once
winter woodpeckers

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

I had to smile at the deep focus I felt in this haiku. To listen so intently that one recognizes that the sounds of woodpeckers are out of sync, as if one’s sense of sanctuary was interrupted because of the lack of harmony of the woodpecker sounds. I enjoyed the alliteration of ‘winter woodpeckers’ suggesting a setting which offers a sense of peace and quiet whether walking in the forest or bundled up inside. A lovely original take on the theme of sanctuary.

that blue hour
between night and dawn
all the birds quiet

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

I was intrigued by the phrase ‘that blue hour’, with its layered meanings, ‘blue’ as a mood, in music, or the sky at twilight before sunrise. To be on the precipice of sound, awake and present during this transitional period of quiet stillness before the birds stir offers a sense of sanctuary. The poet included a footnote referring to a scene in Eric Rohmer’s film Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle, where a character mentions that true moment of complete silence – l’heure bleue. This note deepened my appreciation for the haiku. I also value how the poem offers enjoyment on both a literal and figurative level.

Via Lattea –
nell’infinito silenzio
sentirsi a casa

Milky Way –
in the infinite silence
feeling at home

Giuliana Ravaglia
Bologna (Italy)

I immediately connected to the last line of this haiku, ‘feeling at home’, in relationship to the ‘Milky Way’. Within this ‘infinite silence’, we are stardust, feeling our connection to the galaxy of which we are a small part. The word ‘infinite’ elevates the poem beyond just an absence of sound to a deep connection with the cosmos. I sense a spiritual and scientific recognition of our origins which offers a sense of calm and peace when compared to the insignificance of our everyday lives. I can’t imagine a better way to seek a moment of sanctuary than by looking up at the Milky Way.

Warm afternoon
two goats debate
the clouds.

Cendrine Marrouat
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

I could not resist choosing this haiku to comment on because I am a goat astrologically and I happen to love mountain goats. I’ve photographed them at over 14,000 feet, so debating the clouds is something I can both visualize and hear. This is obviously a summer afternoon as quite often mountain roads are impassable in the winter. The last two lines offer room for the reader to interpret this moment. Are they bleating or butting each other? Is this a vocal debate or a physical one? I can visualize ‘two goats’ up with ‘the clouds’ at high elevation and find myself enjoying this haiku on both a literal and figurative level and I consider whether the sounds are two mountain goats, or two old goats of another species debating the weather. At any rate, I feel a sense of peace on this ‘warm afternoon’ with its background of goat sound.

morning fog
I am a bird
seen from a cage

Biswajit Mishra
Canada

I was intrigued by the last two lines of this haiku and had to consider if it was speaking to freedom or confinement or both. ‘Fog’ suggests a sense of enclosure where the world blurs and one is aware of their breathing; I feel a sense of sanctuary. Does a bird in a cage sense the walls of its confinement? Does it dream of freedom, or is freedom found within the walls of its cage? Do the walls of fog offer a sense of peace within a void? I enjoyed a sense of existentialism with hints of Kafka’s famous aphorism, “I am a cage, in search of a bird”, suggesting a search for meaning. Either way, freedom, or confinement, I feel a deep sense of sanctuary in this poem.

scrunching newsprint
the sound of a weekend
window washer

Laurie Greer
Washington, DC

I took a few interpretive liberties with this haiku, and I loved its everyday scene: a weekend moment and the sounds it carries. For some, weekends mean rest; for others, they’re for catching up on chores. I felt sanctuary in two ways – through the leisure of someone inside, glad not to be washing windows but soothed by the rhythmic scrape of newsprint on glass, and through the rhythmic motions of the window washer’s hands, a meditative motion that frees up the mind. The use of alliteration offers a sense of musicality to the haiku as well.

autumn walk
the wind plays
my empty cup

Adele Gallogly
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

A walk in any season can offer peace and sanctuary, but autumn – the season of letting go – pairs especially well with ‘my empty cup’, both literally and figuratively. The speaker becomes the empty cup. I like the parallel movement of the walker and the wind: one intentional, the other playful. ‘The wind plays’ feels light, as if the cup is being tossed or even used like an instrument. I can hear the thin, reedy whistle of wind through trees and over the cup’s rim. Emotionally, the sanctuary I sense here is the feeling of an emptiness being filled be it a cup or a person.

moonbuddy
the waxing and waning
of her breath…

Adele Evershed
Wilton, Connecticut

There is a tender sense of intimacy in the word ‘moonbuddy’ as if one were moon viewing with someone special. However, ‘moonbuddy’ might also refer to the moon itself, moon as companion while one listens to the rise and fall of a loved one’s breath. Linking the cycles of the moon to the inhale/exhale of breath opens the poem up to deeper levels as does the feminine reference to cycles. What I like about this haiku is its sense of mystery as to what is happening, a companionable moment, or a personal vigil; both offer a sense of sanctuary through the sounds of breathing on a moonlit night.

dusk foghorn . . .
the colors
of a dream

Keiko Izawa
Japan

I was drawn to the dreamlike atmosphere of this haiku. A ‘foghorn’ at any time has a haunting, lonely sound as it pierces the mist, but echoing through the fading light of ‘dusk’ adds even deeper connotations to the atmosphere of the poem. The use of ellipsis lengthens the sound. I am reminded of a death haiku written by Ome Shushiki, translated by Yoel Hoffman: “I wake and find / the colored iris / I saw in my dream”. I love the inner/outer landscape of this poem, memories made tangible through the synesthetic combination of sound and color.

Join us next week for our next prompt…

Bios:

Guest Editor Carole MacRury resides in Point Roberts, Washington, a unique peninsula and border town that inspires her work. Her poems have won awards and been published worldwide, and her photographs have been featured on the covers of numerous poetry journals and anthologies. Her practice of contemplative photography along with an appreciation of haiku aesthetics helps deepen her awareness of the world around her. Both image and written word open her to the interconnectedness of all things, to surprise, mystery and a sense of wonder. She is the author of In the Company of Crows: Haiku and Tanka Between the Tides (Black Cat Press, 2008, 2nd Printing, 2018) and The Tang of Nasturtiums, an award-winning e-chapbook (Snapshot Press 2012).

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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Banner Photo credit:  Carole MacRury

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.  Read past Haiku Dialogue posts here.