slanted sunlight

Maybe you’ve noticed or maybe you haven’t that fewer haiku tend to be written about the summer than about any other season. (I have absolutely no hard data to support this conclusion. But I’ve got a whole theory about it, so work with me here.)

I mentioned this to a friend who is just becoming familiar with haiku.

— Autumn, I told him, that’s the haiku season. It’s more wabi-sabi. [Insert whole discussion about wabi-sabi.]

— Fine, he said, wabi-sabi away, but why autumn? Think outside the box here. Why can’t you be all imperfect and melancholic in the summer?

— Um, because it’s too sunny, I said. People are all warm and happy in the summer. They’re going to the beach, having barbecues. Nothing is dying. There’s nothing to be wistful about.

— Aha (he said triumphantly). But that makes the wistfulness more ironic and unexpected. It’s more interesting that way. You should write more haiku about the summer.

Hmmm. I suppose I should.

.

summer night
a gunshot separates
light from dark

.

the surgeon questions
my need to be awake —
summer downpour

.

slanted sunlight…
I say “I do”
in divorce court

.

glaring sun ::
his flawed logic
convinces me

.

across the lawn
a hose stretched taut–
summer dusk

..

a room full of mosquitoes in and out of love

.

.

Tendrils of Ivy (Yotsumono)

tendrils of ivy
I think I’ll paint
my mailbox blue

she moves the snake away
from the garden hose

an uninvited guest
is knocking
at the door

one last question
before the storm begins

.
verse credits: willie, melissa, willie, melissa

Willie Sorlien suggested that he and I write some renku together and I said okay, even though I was a little scared because Willie has done way, way, WAY more renku than I have and has even won prizes and stuff (the triparshva linked to here, of which he was sabaki, won the 2010 Journal of Renga and Renku Renku Contest). But he was very kind and picked out a nice short form called the yotsumono that was invented by the great John Carley as a renku exercise. Believe me, I need plenty of exercise.

We wrote four of these. (The others will be showing up soon.) I did notice my linking-and-shifting muscles limbering up after a while. I think.

Here’s a couple more yotsumono written by John Carley, Lorin Ford, and John Merryfield, where you can watch their progress in the comments and read a way more intelligent discussion of the form than I could provide at this point.