Haiku of the Day Theme for September 2025: Mother Nature

I am conscious of two realms of nature. The first realm is my immediate environment which distracts me from the excesses of digital life. However, in a crowded urban setting, not much is possible. Perhaps this situation helps me gain a deeper understanding of the lives and silent struggles of my fellow creatures, which mostly include insects, dogs, cats, cows, trees, flowers, and birds. Each visitor teaches me additional life lessons without judgment or expectations. With just a few more, this will continue.

The other realm is the nature I imagine. The nature that I have not directly experienced through my senses. Is it not possible that both these realms of wilderness continuously interact with the dynamics of one’s inner world and exchange energies, leading to poems?

The order in which these poems occur, and the silence or emptiness between them, may also reflect certain relationships that require the reader’s cooperation. Despite there being a subject in a poem, the self seems to disappear into nature through the very act of “watching.” This self will be visible again as it is bound to, but in a transformed state.

I am grateful to all the haiku and senryū authors who allowed me to select and share their evocative and poignant works. Through this cumulative moment of experiences and expressions, I may learn to explore and transcend the division between “human” and “nature.” Broadly, this theme also familiarizes us with the concept of tzu-jan.

The Haiku of the Day feature displays a new haiku each day at the top of our home page. See also our Haiku of the Day Archive.

– Richa Sharma