re:Virals 499

Welcome to re:Virals, The Haiku Foundation’s weekly commentary feature on some of your favorites among the best contemporary haiku and senryu written in English, hosted by Keith Evetts (managing editor) and Melissa Dennison.  In the seat today is Melissa.  This week’s poem, chosen by Peter C. Forster was:

     
from the corn maze
the laughter
of lost children
—Garry Gay
 Haiku Foundation Volunteer Anthology 2024 "bee here now"

Introducing this poem, Peter writes:

Garry Gay (originator of rengay) has been writing haiku for years This verse showcases the experienced haiku poet’s ability to craft from a simple moment, in simple terms, a memorable verse of wide appeal that’s rich in resonance. I think it makes a good follow-on from last week’s “old book smell i catch the rye.” In comparison, the poet does not intrude with their personal thought. The images are left to speak directly to and for the reader. There is lightness of touch. The magic word that is perfectly accurate in the observation is “lost.” It gives a reader space to contemplate the many ways of being lost and to reflect on the nature and causes of laughter as “being lost” is confronted. The word “maze” also contributes to unsaid surplus meaning in this plain but effective haiku where the tall corn gives the summer season. We are in the presence of childhood innocence as in the previous (seasonless) monoku, but without resorting to intertextuality by reference to a book many may not have read.

I await reader reactions with interest—fascinating in themselves

Opening comment (Melissa):

This week’s poem is a departure from the previous in that it engenders a sense of fun, joy and laughter. This is something that we could all do with in these uncertain and turbulent times. Crucially this verse describes the phenomena of child’s play, something that is often overlooked as trivial or insignificant. However, it is through the process of play that we grow and learn, since it engenders creativity, problem-solving and emotional growth. We tend to forget this as adults, as the pressures to earn a living, to succeed, to conform and achieve the goals we set for ourselves consume our daily lives. We become so caught up in what we think we should be doing we forget what it feels like to be light and carefree, to be in the moment, enjoying life simply for what it is. When I read Garry’s words this is what strikes me the most, that this haiku captures these lost feelings of childhood. There is a simplicity and lightness in the subject matter of this verse and in the way that it is written, which epitomises karumi. This is expressed through the language and actions of the everyday and conveys an attitude that eschews taking life too seriously. Karumi is discussed by Susumu Takiguchi’s essay Karumi: Matsuo Basho’s Ultimate Poetical Value Or Was It? Lightness In Haiku Interestingly in this essay Basho is quoted as saying to his disciple Yaha: “For the time being, the present (haikai) style (of the Bashō School) will do. However, in about five or six years’ time it will have changed completely and our style will turn ever lighter.” Why he decided on five or six years I can’t say, it seems a little arbitrary, but if anyone out there knows the answer I would be interested to hear it. This can be described as a pivotal moment, whilst humour was present within haikai long before Bashō, karumi reinstated a lightness of touch even for serious subjects.

Takiguchi’s article is well worth reading, and the link is in the footnotes below if you are interested. One final thought, whilst reading Laughing With Karumi (first published in the British Haiku Society journal Blithe Spirit 25:2, May 2015) I came across the following
“Karumi, particularly in the 1690’s, was [..] associated with ada, the playful spirit of a child.” So there we have it, haiku embraces playfulness, something we need to keep in our minds as we live our lives and when we next put pen to paper or in my case phone!

Alan Harvey:

Garry Gay’s haiku is such a joyful celebration of childhood that pivots on the word laughter. From the corn maze laughter and laughter of lost children. And these lost children are not in any danger but joyful. The alliteration of l’s suggest kids skipping through with la-la-la on their lips. There’s a bit of irony also. We teach 5-7-5 to children but this is a wonderful antithesis to that “rule” involving children.

Vidya Premkumar:

I keep returning to the Haiku as though it were a familiar echo from my own childhood, or perhaps my motherhood. The image is deceptively simple. A corn maze conjures autumn afternoons, golden light, the rustle of dry stalks, and the thrill of not knowing what lies around the corner. But what strikes me is the soundscape: the laughter of lost children. Not cries, not panic—laughter. The dissonance is striking. It challenges our adult anxieties around being lost.

Reading it through a psychological lens, I think of Winnicott’s idea of the “transitional space,” where play and reality blur. Children in a maze, even when technically lost, are still immersed in play. Their laughter, even in uncertainty, reminds me how resilience is often built not in safety, but in the safe-enough unknown. I can’t help but feel both wonder and worry — an adult’s tension between nostalgia and protection.

From a phenomenological angle, I experience this poem as a moment suspended in time. The haiku itself is a maze — just ten words — but it holds that elastic stretch of experience where time both slows and expands. I sense the corn maze not just as a physical space, but as a metaphor for life’s wandering paths. The laughter becomes a call to presence, to the now — perhaps a nod to the anthology’s title, bee here now.

Feminist readings also stir in me. We often expect children, especially girls, to be quiet, cautious, afraid. But here they’re loud, unbothered by being “lost.” That laughter is radical. It subverts the notion that a lack of direction is failure.

I find myself softened by this poem. I want to lose my way more often—so I too can laugh like those children, not despite being lost, but because of it.

Dan Campbell:

Sermon by Preacher Templeton Inspired by a Garry Gay Poem

Church family, this week’s sermon, like so many other sermons, is inspired by a poem from re:Virals.

I was sittin’ out on my porch one evening reading this poem. Children’s laughter. Light, joyful, echoing out from a big old corn maze. At first, it made me smile. But then… it struck me. That sound. That innocent laughter coming from deep inside a place meant to confuse, to disorient—to get folks lost.

And then the Lord whispered to my heart,
“That’s the world, Son. That’s what sin looks like. Lost… and laughin’.”

See, that corn maze—it’s more than a Halloween tradition. It’s a picture of how so many live today. Wandering. Turnin’ corners. Hittin’ dead ends. Chasin’ feelings, fads, success, and self—but never findin’ the way out.

And what breaks my heart most is… they don’t even know they’re lost.

That broad path—it’s easy. Feels fun. Seems harmless. But it leads nowhere good. Just like that maze. You can laugh your way deeper into it—but you can’t laugh your way out.

I want to talk about that laughter for a moment.

There’s something haunting about it. Not because laughter’s bad—not at all. But because it’s joy in the wrong place. It’s celebration without salvation.

Some of us are so caught up in the noise of life, the fun, the distractions—we don’t realize we’re driftin’ further and further from God.

We see it all the time: folks smilin’ on the outside, postin’ perfect pictures, fillin’ their lives with everything but the truth. And they don’t even feel the danger around.

Friends… Jesus is standin’ at the edge of your maze right now, callin’ your name.
He’s not angry. He’s not waitin’ to punish. He’s waitin’ to rescue.

Revelation 3:20 says,
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.”

Maybe you’ve been wanderin’. Maybe you’ve been smilin’ on the outside but hurtin’ on the inside. Maybe you’ve just been driftin’.

You don’t have to find your own way out. You just need to follow Him.

So this morning, I’m askin’ you—are you laughin’ in the maze… or ready to come home?

If you hear His voice, don’t wait. Don’t pretend you’re not lost if you are. Come to the altar. Come to the light. Come to the One who knows your name.

He’s holdin’ the lantern. And He’ll lead you all the way home.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

The very thought of losing my way in a dense corn maize sends a chill up my spine. I indeed lost my way once, during a dark moonless night, on the outskirts of an urban jungle (not dissimilar to the cotton maize in its spine chilling detail) with only the distant blinking street lights to guide me to ‘crawl’ to the city. Garry Gay’s Haiku seems to have the power of instant recollection of creepy experiences – like the laughter of the children lost in the corn maize after night fall as the only guide to reach and rescue them.

Jonathan Epstein:

Corn mazes, labyrinths cut out of corn fields, are a popular fall activity that earns American farmers extra revenue in many states. In this photographic haiku, I see two or three children huddling in a 1-2 acre maze. Finding themselves in the same spot for the third time sends them into peals of laughter. It’s a delight to hear, the joy of children at play. Aware they are going in circles just adds to their fun. The idea of being hopelessly lost never occurs to them. Perhaps knowing their parents are close by or waiting at the exit frees them from worry.

Or the children are middle-school buddies on an adventure away from parental oversight, chortling when they keep doubling back to the same place. Maybe their laughter arises from poking fun at the one who swears always turning right will lead them out.

Were they navigating a particularly large maze (There’s a 24-acre maze in the state of Vermont), getting lost, especially near sunset time, might quickly devolve into panic, cries for help, a frantic call on a mobile phone.

The metaphor of the corn maze as life journey is fresh and adds universality. Children’s laughter is another metaphor for facing life’s twists and turns (especially wrong turns) with a levity uncomplicated by the overthinking and dire projections that beset adults in difficult situations. Children’s laughter also shares a kinship with Buddhism’s concept of ‘beginner’s mind’ — being open, curious and free of preconceptions.

While the poem can stand alone on the literal level, the ‘life is a maze’ metaphor acquires considerable depth if we consider its allusion (intended or unintended) to the Greek myth of Theseus, who navigates the Labyrinth to its center, where he kills the evil Minotaur and (thanks to Ariadne’s guiding thread) exits the maze a hero.

A most pleasing, uplifting haiku I am adding to my list of favorites.

Sudha Devi Nayak encourages us to embrace the journey:

This haiku brings to my imagination miles and miles of cornfields running up to the horizon with the slant of the sun. Ringing with the laughter of children, lost in the sheaves of corn in the intricacy of a maze. The intoxication of their joy. They couldn’t care less, they are not afraid, oblivious of everything lost in the heady ecstasy and innocence of childhood. It reminds me of the vibrant green of the paddy fields I wandered through as a child along with my siblings, flying hair and grain on my face. This haiku can be a metaphor for life itself where the journey is more important than the destination – navigating the labyrinth of challenges, exploring perspectives, chance encounters, meeting disappointments and pleasant take aways. What matters is that we embrace the journey and plunge headlong. There might be twists and turns, detours, false starts and dead ends, missed opportunities but also unexpected finds and breakthroughs. The children will tell you it’s okay to get lost, find your way, scramble back with discovery and awakening. It is to commence the journey in blissful ignorance, trusting the process and not sacrificing joy and adventure for fear and apprehension.

It is also what the ancients taught us about contemplation and discovery of the self leading to a spiritual transformation

Garry Gay:

This haiku/senryu was written around Halloween time when the pumpkin fields are open and people can come and wander through the corn maze. It’s fun to enter the large corn maze and get lost and try to find your way out. My daughter went in with some friends, and I could hear them laughing as they kept getting lost in the corn rows. This had been a tradition with my daughter for many years. The poem always brings me back to her childhood. There were no revisions to this poem.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. The contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Sudha Devi Nayak. Unfortunately we have not received Sudha’s choice as we go to press. In place, we have chosen another verse . We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be short, or of moderate length, academic, your personal response, spontaneous, or idiosyncratic.  As long as it focuses on the verse presented, and with respect for the poet, all genuine reader reaction, criticism, and pertinent discussion is of value.   Out-takes are kept in the THF Archives.  Best of all, the chosen commentary’s author gets to pick the next poem.

Anyone can participate. Simply use the re:Virals commentary form below to enter your commentary on the new week’s poem (“Your text”) by the following Tuesday midnight, Eastern US Time Zone, and then press Submit to send your entry. The Submit button will not be available until Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in. We look forward to seeing your commentary and finding out about your favourite poems.

Poem for commentary:

     
what I saw was thorns
until one day I passed by
and saw blackberries
— Kelly Shaw
  January 10, 2025, Mainichi Japan

The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy.

Footnote:

Karumi: Matsuo Bashō’s Ultimate Poetical Value, Or was it?

Graceguts Laughing With Karumi https://www.graceguts.com/essays/laughing-with-karumi

More karumi:

re:Virals 492

re:Virals 424

Garry Gay was born in Glendale, California, in 1951. He received his B.P.A. degree in photography in 1974. He is a fine art photographer. He started writing haiku in 1975.

In 1989 he became one of the co-founders of the Haiku Poets of Northern California as well as their first president from 1989-90 and was elected again from 2001-2009, and again from 2014-2025. As president he founded the Two Autumns reading series. In 1991 he was elected as President of the Haiku Society of America. Additionally in 1991 he founded Haiku North America, a biennial haiku conference. In 1996 he co-founded the American Haiku Archives in Sacramento, California. He is the creator of the poetic form called Rengay. He is the author of The Billboard Cowboy, The Silent Garden, Wings of Moonlight, River Stones, Along the Way, and The Unlocked Gate published with John Thompson.