How I tackled Alan Summers’ prompts at NaHaiWriMo last May
Here’s a week of responses to Alan Summers’ prompts at the NaHaiWriMo (National Haiku Writing MOnth, which Michael Dylan Welch created at Facebook three years ago). YES, definitely, a daily challenge to write haiku has cranked up my mind or better yet, like a fit body, oiled it to resiliency. Writing with a group on cyberspace without the politics of bodily presence and its complications of commitments, has also made me fearless about risking my inadequacies–this turned out to be the secret to finding out who I am as a haiku poet as my lines do reveal. But who this is, until now, I can’t put it in a word…perhaps you can! Here then for you to enjoy, I hope.
#05/07/13 (green/gold/gone )
lunar eclipse—
his eyes on her frayed
jeans front
shattered eye what’s left of her mirror
gold leaf saint—
his indifferent stare
#05/06/13 (found as implied)
petal gust–
the street flutist’s
scrambled notes
under her hat…
the missing stubbles
tunnel spigot …the broken loo
fan tail on second thought
pointed fingers his guilt in black nails
#05/05/13 (echo)
weaving
through a cross stitch
of their argument…
her echo
spring echo–
the baby confronts
a Buddha
echo–
he smiles to his own smile
his other smile
#05/04/13 (den)
behind
the den mother’s back…
murmuring cubs
den of iniquity he finds his own sky
reeking of prey the fox’s den
#05/03/13 (curve)
the curve in her thighs wind chart
Lothario–
the river curves
out by rote
curved furrows a worried moon
05/02/13 (blue)
blue dawn…
the rain’s last phrase
on a glass pane
05/01/13 (asperity)
next I look…
the staccato scratching
of his rake
tea rings in my cup the grumbling darkness
on gravel
a day moon’s
sniffle
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About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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jornales 
As usual…you are astonishing…i am always surprised …always ! Thank you for sharing these and much success in your poetic endeavours xoxo
kathleen aka Bl8ant
Oh, thanks so much for a powerful lift, Kathleen!! It takes hard work, I now continuously realize, and spans of empty spaces to make a cocoon, there to birth a line. I love it, for sure, but I also know this period could wane, and so, I’m simply rolling with it. Thanks again.
Hi,
I have a problem with most haiku writers because they ‘miss’ the ‘intention’ of haiku, or perhaps they don’t study the form much and miss the important ‘mechanics’ (for lack of a better word in English) of haiku. I struggle with haiku myself, and go back to Basho and especially Saigyo for reference and direction.
However, I think you come closest to haiku. Of course, I am an old fogey and I go to the classics for instruction. I really like these of yours. And haiku isn’t easy and it’s not a shortened version of freeverse which is what I find with most writers of haiku.
Best,
Lady Nyo
Oh, thank you so much for your comments on my haiku, Lady Nyo! Thank you for confirming that I do ‘come closest to haiku’, dispelling my doubts. With one like you, who studies Japanese masters of the short poetry form, it’s an honour!! Thank you so much again!
Best regards,
Alee
I think you are doing very well….and you write interesting haiku. I may not immediately recognize the form, but the theme always entices…
Lady Nyo
not Saigyo (tanka) ,,, Issa….or Buson.
Lady Nyo
Haha…I caught that. But it’s understandable–your focused more on Saigyo and other tanka poets!
LOL! For me…tanka is easier than haiku…so I appreciate those who endeavor to present haiku.
Lady Nyo
Thanks so much again, Lady Nyo!!