yet how much sweeter in its
anticipation!
Showing posts with label haiku. Show all posts
Showing posts with label haiku. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
3 Haikus on a Hillside (# 29, 30, 31)
Hillside at twilight -
bare feet on green sward, our
laughter deep and sweet.
In the cool moonlight
the stillness between us like
the scent of pine needles.
Take the long way home.
Meandering in the dew
will be good for you.
Haiku # 28 Missing
The tongue probes the gap
where the tooth had been-- this heart
full of your absence.
full of your absence.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Haiku #27 A Friendship Renewed
My pinched toes have missed
these old slippers' soft caress
- friendship beyond price.
Haiku #26 On Trying to Write Poetry in the City of Pines Part 2
In the patchwork light
you and I sit
plucking poems
plucking poems
from between
treeroots.
treeroots.
Haiku # 24 On Trying to Write Poetry in the City of Pines
Overhead the crows
sans paper and pen mock us
with effortless verse.
No, I didn't get anything else written that day.
Haiku # 23 Break Your Heart Like Bread
Take
your
heart
in
hand
break
it
like
warm
bread
bid
the
hungry
feast.
I think we can understand the mystery of the eucharist only when we know the love that embraces pain as the cost of loving.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Haiku # 22 Hey Up There
Hey! Come down to earth.
Up there the rarefied air
can give you nosebleeds.
The intellect is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.
Friday, April 16, 2010
What's with the haikus?
Haikus invite us to pay attention to the world around us, to focus on details one would normally dismiss. In a way, the haiku writer is like a photographer who simultaneously captures some aspect of the visible world but also presents it to others in a way that invites deeper insight and appreciation of that reality. This kind of attention is spiritually valuable.
The temptation in much spirituality is to, well. . . spiritualize, to get caught up in what is abstract, theoretical, and disembodied; to dismiss what is sensuous, affective and particular as if such were unworthy of our regard. Such an approach is wrongheaded. One's experience of the divine is mediated through our experience of created reality. God is not encountered directly but "in and through" our engagement with particular events, persons and objects through which we sense an unexpected depth and richness. Ignoring the reality of this mediation leads to a pernicious "angelism", a sterile intellectualism, a profound disengagement from the stuff of life. Haiku-writing is an antidote to this "angelism" precisely because it celebrates what is sensuous and particular. It forces one to attend to the things of this world with something like love. In the process, we may discover that God is in the details.
Haiku-writing involves capturing the amalgam of insight and sense experience in the fewest possible words. This compression means that a lot of deliberation goes into choosing the appropriate words to communicate an experience. Words used carelessly and excessively convey nothing significant--they become facile and opaque. Haiku-writing challenges us to make not just words, but even the silences between our words, speak.
To my mind, the aformentioned reasons constitute the virtues of this particular discipline. For "heady" people like me, haiku is a way of cultivating an attentiveness to human experience that contributes to the appreciation of life's richness.
The temptation in much spirituality is to, well. . . spiritualize, to get caught up in what is abstract, theoretical, and disembodied; to dismiss what is sensuous, affective and particular as if such were unworthy of our regard. Such an approach is wrongheaded. One's experience of the divine is mediated through our experience of created reality. God is not encountered directly but "in and through" our engagement with particular events, persons and objects through which we sense an unexpected depth and richness. Ignoring the reality of this mediation leads to a pernicious "angelism", a sterile intellectualism, a profound disengagement from the stuff of life. Haiku-writing is an antidote to this "angelism" precisely because it celebrates what is sensuous and particular. It forces one to attend to the things of this world with something like love. In the process, we may discover that God is in the details.
Haiku-writing involves capturing the amalgam of insight and sense experience in the fewest possible words. This compression means that a lot of deliberation goes into choosing the appropriate words to communicate an experience. Words used carelessly and excessively convey nothing significant--they become facile and opaque. Haiku-writing challenges us to make not just words, but even the silences between our words, speak.To my mind, the aformentioned reasons constitute the virtues of this particular discipline. For "heady" people like me, haiku is a way of cultivating an attentiveness to human experience that contributes to the appreciation of life's richness.
3 Haikus on Parting (# 19, 20, 21)
my bedroom window has gone
stealing heaven's bliss.
Memory's a lamp
burning in this dark cottage
till you come again.
Yes, droplets flung high
on a wand’ring wave one day
fall back to the sea.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Haiku # 16: Joy Bursts in the Mouth
Joy bursts in the mouth
Ripe as pomegranate seeds
Pressed against white teeth.
Haiku #15: The Letter on My Door
Letter on my door
Cicada song as twilight falls
- a grateful sadness.
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