Per Diem Archive Details

Per Diem Archive: Kala Ramesh Sept. 2012, The Five Elements

Haiku on an Indian Theme - The Five Elements

The Hindus and the Buddhists believe that all Creation, including human beings, is composed of five essential elements. When death occurs, everything is transposed into these elements of nature, thus balancing the cycle of evolution. The elements and their associated sense perceptions are: Ether - Akasha - space / sound; Wind - Vayu - sound & touch; Fire - Agni - sound, touch & form; Water - Jalam - sound, touch, form & flavour; Earth - Prithvi - sound, touch, form, flavour & smell. This classification is woven into the fabric of our day-to-day activities, and widely used in all our art forms, including poetry, literature, dance, music and painting. The haiku poems showcased here might not appear in the order originally arranged, but you could use your ingenuity and guesswork to 'sense' how many of these elements are present in the haiku, when you read them.

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Author: John Barlow
so few feathers left
it barely has a name
the melting snow
Author: Angelee Deodhar
rumors of war
up into a darkening sky
—a child's newsprint kite
Author: Jo McInerney
summer storm
the windscreen wipers
slice our silence
Author: Marlene Mountain
left to itself a moon without subtitles
Author: Karen Cesar
almost autumn so many holes to another universe
Author: Michael McClintock
a broken window
reflects half the moon,
half of me
Author: Billie Dee
mockingbird an octave shy of the moon
Author: Alan Summers
train whistle 
a blackbird hops 
along its notes
Author: George Swede
working late
i meet my loneliness
in the long hallway
Author: Peter Yovu
a falcon dives
how completely
I surround my bones
Author: Lee Gurga
morning birdsong requiring quotation marks
Author: Martin Lucas
the wood breathes:
a leaf falling
into fallen leaves
Author: Johannes Manjrekar
rumble of thunder
a sunbird comes darting
through the wire fence
Author: Laryalee (Lary) Fraser
between the sky
and the spin of the earth
this falling leaf
Author: Billie Wilson
campfire sparks —
someone outside the circle
starts another song
Author: K. Ramesh
evening breeze — 
hundreds of lamp flames 
sway in the temple
Author: John Stevenson
winter morning—
scribbles on a scratch pad
get the ink flowing
Author: Fay Aoyagi
icy rain
at the bottom of the lake
a door to yesterday
Author: Francine Banwarth
solstice moon 
breasts that filled 
and emptied
Author: Al Fogel
Basho's frog. . . 
four hundred years 
of ripples
Author: Jane Reichhold
coming home
flower
     by
       flower
Author: John McManus
cardboard boxes 
my son turns himself 
into a robot
Author: Melissa Spurr
aftershock 
a tremor lingers 
in the dog
Author: Chad Lee Robinson
migrating geese —
the things we thought we needed
darken the garage
Author: Carolyn Hall
New Year's Day 
the center of the chocolate 
not what I expected
Author: Catherine J.S. Lee
birth certificate:
the name of the father
he never knew
Author: Bill Kenney
spring afternoon
the schoolchildren return
to the dead squirrel
Author: Jim Kacian
self-portrait some truth to the smudges
Author: Karma Tenzing Wangchuk
stone before stone buddha
Author: Ed Markowski
temple path
the dust i kick up
sticks to me
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