Haiku

As the poems I have to offer you today are brief, I am thinking of this as a brief , and I hope welcome, visit.

–Brief, to reflect the brevity of haiku. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. Traditionally there are three lines, in the format of first 5 syllables, then 7, then 5 again, usually employing nature imagery. I do not know if the original format is well-employed in English, but English-speaking poets have been writing haiku for ages. So I am approaching this poetry again.

I have had numerous murmurings of lines for poems, or images, over the last year or more, yet have not written much that is ample. Instead, brief vignettes have passed by my imagination. Then I remembered haiku.

Perhaps haiku, I thought. Short, distilled. Still, capturing some portraits of uncountable winter scenes and thoughts.

Here are some I wrote this week.

If February is wearying where you are, think of catching haiku in what you see or hear around you. It is challenging, a cheering and a quieting writing.

Deanna

Haiku 1

Ice-sheathed twigs backlit

By sun after freezing rain

Winter light arrayed.

Haiku 2

Cognitive decline,

Not like lovely falling blooms;

No sweet Spring to come

Haiku 3

Listen through breezes

For similes and pathos:

You may hear haiku.

Haiku 4

Through sleet and snowstorm

Bird singing his mating song

Declares Spring will come.

Haiku 5

I will sit with God

Today in silence, loving;

Laugh aloud with Him.

13 thoughts on “Haiku”

  1. Beautiful…touched me. 🙂 As do your books. Some lines that warmed my heart:

    Through sleet and snowstorm

    Bird singing his mating song

    Declares Spring will come.

    I will sit with God

    Today in silence, loving;

    Laugh aloud with Him.

  2. I have to read through Haiku twice (or more) to get the full mood/feeling. My favorite of the 5 is Haiku 5. Been doing that a lot lately talking quietly with HIm – mostly about Eric. In the quietness I feel peace. Thank you for getting back to writing. You frame your thoughts and feelings so beautifully Deanna. I could feel the cold in the first 3 and hope in the 4th.

  3. As always, Deanna, you get to the heart of things. I can identify with each one on some level. Keep at it, dear friend.

  4. Feels like I’m sitting with you in a warm snuggly place, taking in the views outside a picture window. Thank you for sharing!

  5. Thanks Deanna. I do enjoy this style. I was especially taken by the powerful and sobering truth of #2 and grateful that though this is the reality of this side of death it is not the reality that awaits the coming of the Eternal Spring. Thanks for sharing 🙂

  6. You have such a gift of bringing feeling to words, of painting a picture. Simple yet profound, You share hope, God’s beautiful handiwork and also the reality of our twilight years, thought provoking. Beautiful!! Thank you!

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