e a m harris
Roaming the byways of literature
Archive for the tag “haiku”
The seasons move on
Soon we’ll say ‘so long’
to the frosts that rim the leaves;
lost to the spring sun.
Snow
It snowed today.
Maybe
It will melt tomorrow.
Nature decides.
Past beauty
Carpe Diem, as usual, has a fascinating challenge based on unknown haiku poets. Some of them are not completely unknown, but details of their lives seem to be sparse.
The topic this time is ‘beautiful wave’ taken from a haiku by Heiro Yaezakura (1879-1945).
My take on this subject is:
This water, foaming
on the sand, moments gone was
a beautiful wave.
Picture from Clifford Weinmann
Poem for April Fools Day
The sun rises
on April Fools Day to shine,
for one morning, on Truth.
photo credit: Thanks for over 2 million views!!
<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/113086034@N04/38546106460″>Copenhagen</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Life: the only game there is
On the Carpe Diem site we have been set an interesting challenge – to write a haiku or tanka on the theme of ‘life is a game’.
This isn’t exactly a new theme for poetry, many poets in different countries, writing in different languages, have done the same, but it seems to me a bit unusual for haiku. However, us haiku writers can rise to any challenge, and I suspect that, in the ‘old days’ when Basho and his friends were holding (drunken) haiku parties, many way-out subjects were used.
Chèvrefeuille himself has given us a beautiful haiku as a model, tying the game to the seasons:
life is but a game
nature rolls the dices
seasons change
I haven’t managed to use the seasons, but I found the theme fits the haiku form well:
life is an endgame
only the Fates are certain
when the game will end.
Picture of The Three Fates from wikimedia.
Autumn birds
Carpe Diem has given us an interesting prompt of music entitled The Last of His Name by BrunuhVille.
Using music made me think of birds; the time of year is about migrating birds.
The last of his name
“Swallow” will follow the flock
but not just yet.
Photo from Photopin.
Modern sculpture and haiku
Carpe Diem has had a series of posts linking haiku with sculpture. This may be something of a departure for writers, like myself, who have looked to the natural world for inspiration, but it has given rise to many really interesting poems.
I found it quite a challenge but it opened up new ideas and ways of seeing.
cool lawn; bronze sculpture;
graceful struts entwine upwards;
metallic tango.
(Pic from Carpe Diem post)
Cardoons – built for power and poetry
I can’t remember where I took this photo, but I love the mass of large, spiky, in-yer-face leaves.
I checked around to see if I could find any poems about cardoons. The internet is not exactly thick with them but I did find one, about a baboon but including cardoon.
Artichokes have more poets interested in them, and since they don’t seem to be much different to cardoons, I thought it fair to include a link.
Flowers in a bed tend to give me the impression that they are posing, not for a photo, but for a haiku. I couldn’t find any ready written so here is my haiku on these magnificent plants.
Summer afternoon.
Round cardoon heads stand above
rosettes of huge leaves.
e a m harris 
Here today gone tomorrow
I took this picture last time we had snow, I no longer have a pampas grass to catch snowflakes and hold them up to be admired.
The white beauty lasted longer then; this year it was only decorating the garden for two days.
I’ve written haiku about snow before but it’s a subject that lends itself to the lightness of very short poems.
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