re:Virals 525

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. In the host chair today is Shawn Blair. This week’s poem, chosen by Kay Schwartz was:

   
march winds
the chaotic sound
of wind chimes
—Linda L. Ludwig
Poetry Pea Journal 2:24

Introducing this poem, Kay writes:

Living in Michigan, USA, the month of March is a pivotal month in our change of seasons. We say “it comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb,” but that’s not always true! It’s an unpredictable adventure. My next door neighbor has wind chimes that she leaves out year round, so as this haiku zoomed in from the large to the small it brought me right into my own back yard and really touched me. I hope others have an enlightening experience reading it. I look forward to the editor’s remarks and readers’ commentaries.

Host comment (Shawn):

Sound happens. Music is sound ordered in a conscious way. But wind chimes are something in-between: their music is an expression of the uncertain breezes together with a set range of musical notes created by the chimes’ maker. When instead of soft breezes, the March winds blow, that balance is upset—as is any classical sense of beauty. Neighbors mutter under their breath, pets supplicate their owners with anxious eyes. All hell breaks loose, until the chimes are completely tangled and can make no sound at all.

Beth Ramos:

“March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.” Every March at morning meeting in my first grade classroom the children discussed and then voted on whether it was a lion or a lamb day. This poem brought back memories from 50 years ago. Thank you.

Alan Harvey:

You couldn’t confuse a zephyr with a March wind.

When we think of wind chimes, there’s the melodic sound of tranquility and connection with nature. Wind Strong is the name of the Pueblo March full moon. March wind is chaotic and strong. The March wind is the dissonant chords of a heavy metal ballad. So, when the March wind strikes, the dulcimer sounds of the chimes become chaotic and dissonance arises.

Ludwig crafts a beautifully simple observation of the strength and power of the March winds.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

There is paradoxically a restfulness about this wonderful haiku amidst the chaos. March winds blow in the season of spring and the world seems a joyous medley of bird song, blue skies, green fields and flowing streams. As the English poet says, “There’s joy in the mountains, there’s life in the fountains.” While the world is pulsating with the verve of spring the chimes of the wind speaks in a thousand tongues, a pure revelry of sound, the wind and the forest, the river and the sky, a creation in the chaos.

There again they blow into your drawing room and the wind chimes dance to their music spreading good cheer and harmony all around. There is a spiritual connection as they slip into your consciousness, your slumbers, siestas, dreams or whatever.

What music can surpass the charm and soulfulness of these chimes in the wind? In the heart of the chaos wrought by the wind and chime lies a serenity beyond words.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

Wind Chimes are generally set up near the entrance to homes. When we moved into our newly constructed house, my son insisted that we set up the wind chimes in the spacious veranda on the side where we were raising a new flower garden. His idea was that the gentle sounds of the chimes would create a pleasant, relaxing atmosphere for us living in the house and provide a generative soundscape as well for the healthy growth of the flowering plants. His expectations were sufficiently realised for two or three flowering seasons with bountiful yields. The tinkling sounds of the chimes in the gentle wind and breeze created an ambience of peaceful positive energy around the house. My son was blessed with twin girls making our home a paradise of sorts with the crooning babies and the reverberating chimes.

In India, it is not the month of March that brings strong winds like in the Northern hemisphere. It is the monsoon season from August onwards that disturbs the tranquility what with gusty winds of cyclonic weather that breaks the delicate strings holding the chimes together. You wait for the windy season to pass and set up a new set of chimes. Like in the haiku of Linda L Ludwig, the winds cause the chaotic sounds to emanate from the otherwise musical chimes. The haiku is true to life haiku.

Dan Campbell:

ESSAY BY A WIND CHIME STREET MUSICIAN ON A POEM

Most folks don’t quite know what to make of me—an old man sitting under a lamppost with a bundle of wind chimes and a paper cup that says Tips Appreciated. Some smile. Most hurry past. A few stop, tilt their heads, and really listen. Those are my people.

I don’t just hang up wind chimes. I play them—or maybe they play me. Folks think the wind makes random noise, but after all these years I’ve learned the truth: the wind is a musician.

March is her favorite month. She comes roaring through the streets—bold, unpredictable, full of feeling. She tosses my chimes around, and every clatter becomes a kind of prayer.

The poet wrote:

march winds
the chaotic sound
of wind chimes

But that’s not chaos. That’s creation still happening.

I started busking after my harmonica rusted in the Virginia rain. I built my first set of chimes from scraps—copper pipe, glass shards, a diner spoon. When the wind hit them, they sang. Not perfectly, but honestly. That was enough.

Now I set up wherever the air moves—street corners, parks, riverbanks—and let the wind choose the song.

At my age, I don’t chase applause. I play for the sound, for the brief peace it brings.

And when the wind blows just right through my chimes, I swear—for one shining moment—the whole world sounds like it’s singing again.

Sean Murphy:

Funny story: my morning alarm for the longest time was the wind chime sound that came with my phone. To this day, I can’t hear wind chimes when I’m out and about without instinctively reaching into my pocket. This haiku immediately evokes, to me, that recurring moment of panic and confusion, the sudden intrusion of chaos into a peaceful spring day. (Incidentally, how wonderfully onomatopoeic is the use of the word “chaotic” here? Hard, jangling consonants and abrupt vowels shoved right into the middle of an otherwise soft, flowing poem.)

On a second reading, I’m struck by the use of the word “winds”, plural. It implies, I think, a storm, or at least the apprehension of one. These wind chimes aren’t being gently stirred by a spring breeze, they are being tossed about by the churning winds of summer and winter colliding in a burst of rain and thunder. The “chaotic sound of wind chimes” is but an echo of the chaos of the heavens all around them.

That said, the haiku’s emphasis on the wind chimes’ sound creates the sense of that noise cutting through the noise of the storm. I imagine myself lost in the storm at night, unable to see through the rain and darkness, until that odd harmony guides me to the shelter of a neighbor’s front porch—the chaos of the storm harnessed in defiance of it. There’s something profoundly, wonderfully human about that.

Radhamani Sarma:

By itself, “march winds”, beginning with the hint of season spring followed by winds, allows readers to form many conjectural voices and interpretations. It is certainly NOT about “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. After winter’s cold and shiver, chill and foggy mists, wintry morn’s biting desperate suppressing moods and memories, wet jacket and dripping attire, one comes out with ready eagerness in all buoyancy to warmer sun and spring. March winds foray a sense of beginning of warmth and positive aura and much more. Reaping and binding, sowing and singing, echo of merry bird song and field activity and scenes of joyous aura. March winds reflective of hope and new life and beginning growth.

But Linda Ludwig here prepares readers for a shift in tone and significance in the following lines, “the chaotic sound / of wind chimes”. One can presumably argue that this haiku works in the line of juxtaposition. In the first line, a soothing rhyme, a pleasant tone anticipated; but in the second line a shift in meaning and mood, a deliberate choice of observation. “The chaotic sound” blatantly expresses a voice, emanating from so many sources. It is a curious mixture, not all welcome to the ears. Chaos from where, the question arises; sound might probably be from bells at home, churches, a covey of birds, metallic tubes hanging in gardens, all from bells dance and produce unwelcome sound, musical. Chimes recordation of life in many forms and aspects; again sound/chimes in close observation make readers go deeper into layers of tone and connotation.

Linda Ludwig’s expertise in compressing “march winds” is commendable. Simultaneously expanding into another layer of chimes. A beautiful haiku of close observation.

Urszula Marciniak—to the unexplored realms:

We long for harmony, but when spring arrives, even the most orderly person can crave madness, controlled, of course. Even wind chimes can, for a moment, briefly, change their sound to a less harmonious one. Then everything returns to normal, though occasionally there is a shy longing for a March gust of wind that would transport us to the unexplored realms of our desires.

Author Linda L. Ludwig:

This is a simple haiku about my love of wind chimes. In this instance the March winds play with the frantic chiming on a very windy day, where normally wind chimes are gentle melodies in the gentle breezes. I enjoy writing about things that make us smile.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Urszula has chosen next week’s poem, which you’ll find below. 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:

     
waves unearthing shells
deeply buried in the sand—
those words left unsaid
— Alvin B. Cruz
  Runner-Up, Society of Classical Poets 2024 Haiku Competition

Footnote:

Linda Lee Ludwig [L3] is retired and now able to spend her time in creative ventures. Linda loves writing poems, songs, drawing and ceramic painting. She has had many haiku published in Haiku Foundation, FemKu Magazine, Haiku in Action, MahMight, Pea seasonal journals, Scarlet Dragon, Black & White, Haiku Universe, Wales Haiku Journal, Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry), and other online platforms. She belongs to several online groups and was an editor for Poetry Peas TV prompts and enjoys sharing poetry with friends.

re:Virals is co-hosted by Shawn Blair, Melissa Dennison, Susan Yavaniski, and Keith Evetts (managing editor).

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