Lately I have been posting haiku to my Patreon.
While I was having trouble writing fiction, a friend of mine showed me a haiku they’d been working on. I couldn’t manage something like a whole story, but writing seventeen syllables of poetry came easily, and felt right.
These are only sort of traditional haiku. For one thing, I used English syllables instead of trying to adapt English words to Japanese morae which are similar to syllables, but not the same. I did use a seasonal reference in the first line of each, but they aren’t necessarily the kind of seasonal imagery that would have been used in a traditional poem. Also, I talked a lot more directly about what I was feeling, instead of using the metaphors to convey it.
However, I did try to convey the moments as I experienced them in that transient moment. I also tried not to revise, to just let them be in the moment they were. I think I cheated a couple of times, though.
I’m going to send out a haiku every few days for a while, at least until I run out of haiku. (I also wrote a couple of cinquains.) They aren’t necessarily in order, and they’re from a bit ago, so they won’t be a read on my direct emotional state, but I hope the words mean something to you
Here are the first nine:
Humid, intruding
hours that won’t shape into days,
heavy, unwelcome.
Night, that bit too hot.
He sweats and works and I don’t
know when night will cool.
Night is cooler now.
Restless nothings pace my mind,
private and anxious.
Bright green against blue.
Another day forthcoming.
I hope it stays bright.
Mimosa blooms fade.
I am content to watch them
this mild afternoon.
Berries dapple leaves.
They and I, windlessly still,
hope we are ripened.
White with slanted sun,
the too-bright sky is stolen
with painful glances.
Smoke taints blue-bellied sky.
All things contain their reverse.
No moment is pure.
School opens again.
I don’t know why I am sad.
Memories, perhaps.
Melancholy. Fits my mood lately. Thank you.
I really like these. Especially the berries and the smoky sky.