summer heat —
mother and I argue
by the beehives
.
_______________________
Mother? Are you reading this? Yes, I know we’ve never argued by any beehives. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a poem.
Love,
your daughter
mothers
March 11: Family Haiku
.
I didn’t have anything today. I wanted to post but I just was … empty. I was sick of my voice. Didn’t feel like talking anymore.
Then I looked around at my family and suddenly thought, These are the voices I want to hear instead. So we went out for pizza and I took a notebook and I solicited phrases from them. Phrases about what had happened to them this week and about the first signs of spring. We talked about stuff and I kept writing things down. Lots of scribbling and dead ends.
We got home and I looked at the scribbles and I put some things together and read everyone a haiku I had assembled from the pieces they gave me. I made sure they approved of them. And here they are.
.
_______________________________
.
My mom (visiting from New England, where are stone walls all over the place, including her back yard):
snow melting
my stone wall
reappears
.
My husband (spent last weekend cleaning frantically to prepare for my mom’s visit; has terrible teeth):
spring cleaning
the last tooth
capped
.
My son (claims he told me a long time ago that he needs new boots):
slush
new holes
in my old boots
_______________________________
So what’s your family up to these days? Anything worth writing home about?
December 4: Your mother should know
starlight
what happened before
my mother was born
*
moonlight
looking up the answer
in my mother’s face
*
sunlight
replanting the flowers
from my mother’s garden
.
__________________________________
Happy birthday, Mom … have a wonderful day.
June 22: 1-6: The Techniques of Close Linkage and Leap Linkage
(See this post for an explanation of what’s going on here.)
Jane:
The Technique of Close Linkage
“… In making any connection between the two parts of a haiku, the leap can be a small and even a well-known one. Usually beginners are easily impressed with close linkage and experiment first with this form. …
winter coldfinding on a beach
an open knife”
The Technique of Leap Linkage
“Then as a writer’s skills increase, and as he or she reads many haiku (either their own or others) such ‘easy’ leaps quickly fade in excitement. Being human animals we seem destined to seek the next level of difficulty and find that thrilling. So the writer begins to attempt leaps that a reader new to haiku may not follow … I think the important point in creating with this technique is that the writer is always totally aware of his or her ‘truth’. … Usually, if you think about the ku long enough and deeply enough, one can find the author’s truth. …
wildflowersthe early spring sunshine
in my hand”
– Jane Reichhold, Haiku Techniques
*
Me:
Okay, the problem I had here is that although I (think I) understand very well what Jane means by the difference between close linkage and leap linkage, and I have certainly seen many ku where the connection was either invisible to me or I had to think really hard to figure it out, I didn’t actually consider the connection in her second ku here to be any more of a leap than the connection in her first ku. So either I’m unusually perspicacious or I didn’t really understand the second ku at all, or maybe even the first.
I’m actually very interested in this because it does seem to me that how and whether people understand haiku depends much on their experiences and frame of mind, and what one person considers to be an obscure connection can be completely obvious to another. I also frequently wonder whether people get a lot of the connections in my ku at all, and whether, if they don’t, it’s my fault or theirs. I think I’m just going to throw a bunch of ku down here in order (more or less) from what I consider closely to distantly linked, and you can tell me whether you agree with me.
pins and needles
she sews a quilt for
the first baby
lines of code
ants march over the
breakfast dishes
spring downpour
eggshells float in
garbage cans
the hair-clogged drain
she whispers something
he can’t hear
speeding up to pass
we never eat anything
he doesn’t like
trimming square
will her mother give her
the money
June 9: 5 (Foggy mirror)
foggy mirror
her face
or her mother’s
May 23: 1-30: My father
1.
freeze after thaw
cell phone ring
makes me slip on the ice
2.
colder than yesterday
my sister’s voice
on the phone
3.
on my back on the ice
clouds torn open
reveal more clouds
4.
cell phone ring
the airport
vanishes
5.
a stranger’s car
roads darker than I’m used to
curve toward home
6.
snow on dark steps
inside
the family waits
7.
pancakes heavy
in my stomach
throwing out his painkillers
8.
the day after his death
the death of the neighbor’s dog
we sympathize
9.
cold draft in his room
the cards
we used to play with
10.
knocking with cold hands
at the wrong door
of the funeral home
11.
list of funeral expenses
scratches on
the polished table
12.
early dark
white sheet pulled away
from his surprised face
13.
snow on a low wall
choosing between
two burial places
14.
PowerPoint slides
of gravestones
chairs with hard seats
15.
stack of Sunday papers
can’t stop reading
the obituary
16.
morning fog
running up the hills
I left behind
17.
trying on dresses
my sister’s
opinion
18.
Olympic snowboarding
I blow my nose
on his handkerchiefs
19.
thin pajamas
Googling the words of
his favorite hymn
20.
steam from my mother’s tea
showing her
Facebook condolences
21.
day of the funeral
rust from the leaky
faucet
22.
unheated waiting room
one by one
we put coats back on
23.
my father’s funeral
truth
and lies
24.
standing for a hymn
memory of my head
reaching his elbow
25.
minister’s hug
his sympathy card
will regret my unbelief
26.
frost on the windowpane
unfamiliar
relatives
27.
their sympathy
taste of
sweet red punch
28.
snow in the cemetery
wrong kind
of shoes
29.
fresh snow on his car
another
dead battery
30.
my inheritance
a car to drive
a thousand miles home
*
My father died in February. I’d made no effort whatsoever to write about his death before. Or speak about it, really. Or think about it, come to think about it.
Something about haiku makes it easier, by forcing you to remember and concentrate on the tiny physical details of the experience. Writing these has been like compiling a mental photo album of the week of his death. It’s allowed both distance and immediacy. I approach the experience, come close enough to touch it, then draw back quickly, as soon as I start to feel it burn.
May 19: 3 (Run By Maple Saplings)
run by maple saplings
breathing, and listening
to my son breathe
May 9: 3 (Mother’s Day Lilac-Gazing)
mother’s day lilac-gazing
women watching
each other, wondering
Red Dragonfly 