Poetic Musings: Skylark Haiku by Basho

in the midst of the plain

sings the skylark

free of all things

Moss-Hung Trees, 1992

Basho

Commentary by Winona Baker: Haiku is meant to be enjoyed and appreciated. It has been written during festivals, parties, nature tours, walks, and other delightful diversions... a voice to the spirit of union when nature and human nature become one. That moment, which sharpens our awareness of the natural world around us and our inseparable relationship to it, is without boundaries.

Note: The haiku below could be read as a prequel to Basho's:

this field

of rippling gold ...

skylark song

cattails, April 2018

Chen-ou Liu

Special Feature: Selected Poems and Remarks for Reflections on Nakba Day

Just one day after Israelis commemorated the Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, Palestinians around the world mark their Nakba Day, the anniversary of their mass expulsion and exodus from what is now Israel with protests and other events at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe," refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel before and during the "War of Independence in 1948." (The Times of Israel, May 15).

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXIII: "the day after 'Independence Day,' "Nakba Day"

giant Stars of David

and "Together We Will Win" signs

fill Tel Aviv's sky ...

Gazans flee to nowhere

in a desert of rubble

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LIX: "health crisis"

the Grim Reaper waits ...

Gazan children in danger 

from the smoky sky

disease on the ground 

and death from hunger and thirst

(FYI: Haaretz, May 16: Health Crisis in Gaza Spirals as New Diseases, Infections Spread)

It's because the Holocaust dwarfed all other instances of 20th-century injustice and illegality, Edward Said, exiled American Palestinian scholar and probably the world's most famous literary critic claimed, the Palestinians became "Victims of the period's most tragic victims."

However, he made the following special emphasis: 

You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a LIMIT.

And most importantly, 

Haaretz, Analysis, May 13: What Will Happen When the Holocaust No Longer Prevents the World From Seeing Israel as It Is?

For anyone who wanted to see, the truth was already abundantly clear in 1955: "They treat the Arabs, those still here, in a way that in itself would be enough to rally the whole world against Israel," wrote Hannah Arendt.

smoky ruins ...

each day a new battle

for water and food

NeverEnding Story, November 1, 2023

In the real world, a real country serves a purpose other than just as a haven from persecution.

-- Anshel Pfeffer, "Israel's Foundational Conflict Is Playing Out in the Gaza War," Haaretz, Opinion, May 10

candlelight virgil

a tattooed survivor holds

a Stop the War sign

NeverEnding Story, January 27 2028

For peace-loving people around the world, I would like to share the following relevant part of a powerful speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave on Vietnam. What he said then is totally applicable to our times now. 

There comes a time when "Silence Is Betrayal..." Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter....In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

grinding sound of tanks ...

Never Again, Never Again 

for everyone

NeverEnding Story, November 5, 2023

Peace vigil

our candles flicker and hold

in the wind

Frogpond, May, 1988

Peggy Heinrich

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with two poems by Palestinian poets:

I The following is the last stanza of one of the most read/popular Palestinian poems, "Identity Card," written by Mahmoud Darwish, poet of Palestinian resistance (1941-2008) and author of The Butterfly Effect, 2008, who died believing in the power of his poetry to make a difference.

Therefore!

Write down on the top of the first page:

I do not hate people

Nor do I encroach

But if I become hungry

The usurper's flesh will be my food

Beware ...

Beware ...

Of my hunger

And my anger!

II Watch the Scottish actor Brian Cox read Refaat Alareer's poem, “If I Must Die,” posted on December 1, 2023 on Twitter/X, a heartbreakingly prophetic farewell poem that has now been translated into more than 40 languages.

“If I Must Die” 

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze –

and bid no one farewell 

not even to his flesh

not even to himself –

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.

(FYI: Refaat Alareer was killed on December 6, around 6 PM local time in Gaza, in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her children)

FYI: For the Israeli side of the story, see Haaretz, Analysis, May 13: This Independence Day, Israel Has Split Into Two Incompatible Jewish States

There is an elephant in the Israeli room – and no, it's not occupation, though that is its main cause.

The elephant in the room is Israel gradually but inexorably being divided into the State of Israel – a high-tech, secular, outward-looking, imperfect but liberal state – and the Kingdom of Judea, a Jewish-supremacist, ultranationalist theocracy with messianic, antidemocratic tendencies that encourage isolation.

Never in the proud 76 years of Israel's sovereign existence has there been a sadder, more somber, depressing and acrimonious Independence Day than this year … But above and beyond pondering October 7, there is a growing realization that 'unity,' 'one destiny' and 'we have no choice and no other country' have become meaningless and hollow clichés. Instead, more and more Israelis on both sides of the divide see their country as essentially split into two distinct entities: Judea and Israel" 

Butterfly Dream: Aging Starlet Haiku by Margaret Rutley

English Original

aging starlet

lip-syncing

out of sync

Honorable Mention, 2022 HPNC Contest

Margaret Rutley 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

年邁的新星

對口唱歌

仍然不搭調

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

年迈的新星

对口唱歌

仍然不搭调

Bio Sketch

Margaret Rutley had poetry published in journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, the UK, and New Zealand. She won second place for "The Last Resort," a haiku sequence published in Haiku Canada Review and first place for a Valentine's Haiku Contest. She was a member of Haiku Canada, the Haiku Society of America, and wrote with The Heron's Quill poetry group.

Butterfly Dream: Inchworm Haiku by Kirsty Karkow

English Original

inchworm

on a fiddlehead fern 

robin's shadow

Haiku Cycles, April 2001

Kirsty Karkow

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

尺蠖

在一片蕨菜葉上

知更鳥的影子

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

尺蠖

在一片蕨菜叶上

知更鸟的影子

Bio Sketch

Kirsty Karkow lived in Waldoboro, Maine, where she wrote haiku, sijo, tanka, and other short forms. Lyrical, poignant, and spare, her poetry reflected a rich and deep sense of place and spirit. Her haiku have won the Mainichi and the R.H Blyth Award and placed in other contests. And she had two best-selling books in print: water poems: haiku, tanka and sijo and shorelines: haiku, haibun and tanka , published by Black Cat Press.

Special Feature: Selected Poems for Reflections on Motherhood

My Dear Readers:

Today is Mother's Day, a day of honoring mothers and grandmothers for their contributions to our families, communities and society. I would like to share with you the following haiku and tanka about the different stages and impacts of motherhood:

on the toilet

she watches her test growing

a second red line --

outside the bathroom door

twin toddlers crying, mommy 

Chen-ou Liu

pregnant again ... 

the fluttering of moths

against the window 

Janice Bostok

snowdrops ...

the first ultrasound

becomes the last

Tia Haynes

abortion day

a shadow flutters

the fish tank

Roberta Beary

between blood of birth

and blood of death

a new life

on the hospital floor ...

a Gazan mother's last look

Chen-ou Liu

the newborn

empties my friend's breast

in long drains

she's flooded with oxytocin, 

with a mix of love and panic

Chen-ou Liu

breast-feeding

a gesture of something

beast-like

pitiful to think tenderly

that it is called a child

Fumi Saito

my Christian friend

fought a tough civil war

against his gayness ...

his mother who never fought him

now sets out to fight her world

Chen-ou Liu

mother’s log books:

rainfall in mm

sun in degrees

all these comings and goings

on the stage of her life

Sandra Stephenson 

my mother sings

as she brushes her hair

of fine silver …

lament for the girl

missing from the mirror

Gavin Austin

mother laments

being old and bent

I see her

as a curved branch

laden with fruit

Kala Ramesh

my mother

forgets morning glory ...

sitting by the window

she grows the flower

in her heart

Ikuyo Yoshimura

child  wife  mother

I’ve been many things

poet   teacher

one who sits all afternoon

gum leaves filtering the light

Kathy Kituai

Happy Mother's Day

Chen-ou

A Room of My Own: Northern Lights Haiku

war news on mute ...

the skies painted in hues

of green, pink and blue

FYI: This could be read as a prequel to my haiku below:

the reach 

of my selfie stick ...

northern lights

PoemHunter, April 1 2022

And  CTV News, May 10: Spectacular aurora light show to be seen across Canada Friday night

The U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued the first geomagnetic storm watch at the second highest level of G4 since 2005. Geomagnetic storms have five ratings based on severity of their impact, from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme).

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLIII

in this ghost town

not everything gone ...

a MAGA billboard

FYI: This is a sequel to my haiku below

rusty staples

on the bulletin board

a ghost town

Selected Haiku, Kissing A Ghost: 2021 NZPS Poetry Contest Anthology

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLIV

Trump’s fake news

going coronaviral

a tornado of bats

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLV

between Donald Trump jokes a thunderous echo-fart

FYI: This could be read as a sequel to my haiku below:

Game Show, 2024, XLII

written in response to CNN, April 15: Jury selection begins in Trump's historic hush money trial

men's room brawl

this shit-stained moment

for a hush money joke

NeverEnding Story, April 10, 2024 

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLVI

her heels click, clicking

loudly on the courtroom floor 

hush money trial

FYI: The New Yorker, May 10: Stormy Daniels’s American Dream

Donald Trump’s lawyers tried to portray the scrappy adult-film actress as a lying profiteer. Instead, she emerged as an intelligent, credible witness who is also very good at making money.

She has alleged that, during a 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, she met the future President, had less-than-mediocre sex with him, and, a decade later, in the lead-up to the 2016 Presidential election, was paid a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to keep quiet about it.

“Part of the American dream is making money,” she writes in her memoir, Full Disclosure, “I am a firm believer in capitalism.”

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLVII

crows caw-caw-caw

in the unseasonal heat

a pornstar 

an ex-President... and judges

countless (real and on-line)

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLVIII

face to face

with a ten-year-old Trump fan

Mexican parrot

Added: Game Show, 2024, XLVIX

crows caw-caw-caw

the drawn-out debate

with a Trump fan

Added:

a murky red dot

in the orange-tinged skies

on the way out

with prayers we drive through

this wall of wildfire smoke

FYI: CNN, May 14: Rapidly-spreading fires are threatening to burn through Canadian towns and degrading air quality

Dangerous wildfires have scorched tens of thousands of acres and are closing in on multiple Canadian towns, forcing thousands of evacuations and degrading air quality...Canadian fire officials are warning of an “explosive” season that may rival last year.

Poetic Musings: Wild Sea Haiku by Basho

Japanese Original

araumi | ya | Sado | ni | yokotau | amanogawa

wild-sea | - | Sado | to | lay | River-of-Heaven (the Milky Way)

English Translation

a wild sea --

stretching to Sado Isle

the Milky Way

Basho

Comment: This haiku is framed by the natural landscape, a "wild sea" (L1) and the "Milky Way" (L3) through Basho's effective use of inversion (in both the Japanese original and the English translation). Sado Isle, functioning as utamakura (poetic place name) known for its long history of political exiles, surrounded by a wild sea and lying under the Milky Way, comes to "embody the feeling of loneliness, both of the exiles at Sado and of the poet himself. The poem has a majestic, slow-moving rhythm, especially the drawn-out "o" sounds in the middle line (Sado ni yokotau), which suggests the vastness and scale of the landscape" (Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, pp. 242-3)

FYI: For more about utamakura, see To the Lighthouse: A Rhetorical Device, Utamakura (Poetic Place Names)

One Man's Maple Moon: Memoir Tanka by Lorraine Pester

English Original

this soreness

in unexpected places ...

a memoir

of my muscles

thrashing

Lorraine Pester

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

在料想不到的地方

這種酸痛 ...

一部我的肌肉

遭受毆打

的回憶錄

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

在料想不到的地方

这种酸痛 ...

一部我的肌肉

遭受殴打

的回忆录

Bio Sketch

Being curious and staying open to possibility is Lorraine Pester’s way of keeping her haikai fresh. She shies from no topic that presents itself. Her deliberate interactions with birds while dog walking is a frequent theme. She lives with her husband and  Abbey schnauzer in south Texas. 

Butterfly Dream: No Wars Haiku by Hidenori Hiruta

English Original

Mount Taihei

dreaming of no wars

under the sun

Hidenori Hiruta

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

太平山

在陽光下夢想

沒有戰爭

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

太平山

在阳光下梦想

没有战争

Bio Sketch

Hidenori Hiruta was born in 1942, when the Pacific War was going on. Since then, he has continued to seek to illumine the great matter of life and death. He finds it important to share haiku with each other. He is a leader of Haiku Group “Haiku beyond Earth.”

Butterfly Dream: Deaf Man Haiku by Bill Pauly

English Original

the deaf man

at his windowpane

touching thunder

Walking Uneven Ground: Selected Haiku, 2021

Bill Pauly

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

一個聾子

在他的窗戶玻璃上

觸摸雷聲

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

一个聋子

在他的窗户玻璃上

触摸雷声

Bio Sketch

Bill Pauly published two small books of haiku: Wind the Clock by Bittersweet (1977) and Time from His Bones (1978), but later his work appeared mainly in the haiku journals. And his collection of haiku,Walking Uneven Ground: Selected Haiku, won a a Touchstone Distinguished Books Honorable Mention. 

To the Lighthouse: Leaping Tanka

Leaping tanka is a subgenre of leaping poetry as defined by Robert Bly as “a long floating leap from the conscious to the unconscious and back again, a leap from the known part of the mind to the unknown part and back to the known.” 

For example, 

I fill the void

of my heart in exile

with word after word

from a jar of pickles ...

the absence breaks in me

My tanka takes a leap from the conscious -- fill[in] the void/of [the speaker's] heart in exile/with word after word -- to  the unconscious -- the taste/image of a jar of pickles associated with writing, which is unexplained/unexplored in the tanka. 

And yet the absence breaks in the speaker who feels empty and unfulfilled in life. Therefore, a leap from the unconscious back to the conscious again.

FYI: Robert Bly seeks the use of quick, free association of the known and the unknown-the innate animal and rational cognition-which, he maintains, have been kept apart in the development of Western religious, intellectual, and literary thought... Review of Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations by Robert Bly,  University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008

A Room of My Own: Normal Life, A Soap Bubble

my friend turns

forty the age his father died

he mutters

the Grim Reaper haunts me

like my walking shadow

breaking news

at the first light of spring dawn

my friend's stooped back

bends a little further

from grief after grief

thick foggy air

with no sun visible

my friend murmurs

how many mornings are left

for me with something new

my friend dies

alone in his attic room

but the shade of death

has been always on his mind

since his mother hung herself

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXI: "aid worker"

please bury me

with no casket, no prayers

face down, away

from this shrapnel-filled world:

the note in an aid worker's hand

Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXII: "Holocaust Remembrance Day "

written in response to Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day, evening of Sunday, May 5, 2024 – Monday, May 6, 2024, observed by  the State of Israel and many Jews around the world)

And inspired by the following remark by Marek Edelman, the deputy commander of the "Warsaw Ghetto" Uprising and the only leader to survive the war

To be a JEW means always being with the Oppressed and never the oppressors.

a standstill

for two minutes in Israel ...

fifty miles away

fighter jet after fighter jet

silencing everything below 

FYI: This is a sequel to my tanka below:

for Phil Chernofsky, author of And Every Single One Was Someone ("Holocaust Told in One Word, 6 Million Times," Jodi Rudoren's review)

line upon line

page after page

the word

Jew

six million times

NeverEnding Story, January 27, 2014

And in contrast with the following entry:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XI: "Holocaust"

written on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

in response to UN top court's/ICJ's genocide case against Israel ruling

and for Jewish Israelis 

Aftermath

blot out Amalek ...

clutching his bible a rabbi 

lost in thought 

Holocaust Remembrance

Together We Will Win

[peace... peace only]

candlelight virgil

a tattooed survivor holds

a Stop the War sign

NeverEnding Story, January 27, 2024

And The Nation, May 7: Biden Must Condemn Israel’s Attack on Al Jazeera—Now

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government shut down the network’s operations in Israel. Press freedom advocates are raising an outcry, and Americans should back them up.

Netanyahu’s decision—which came just two days after World Press Freedom Day—has been condemned by the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz (“Israel Must Not Shut Down Al Jazeera”) 

Middle East historian Assal Rad posted images from Rafah with the message, “This is why Israel is shutting down Al Jazeera. They don’t want us to see what they’re going to do in Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza,” while former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said, “Israel’s banning of Al Jazeera is one aspect of its War On Truth. It aims at preventing Israelis from knowing what goes on in Gaza.”

Butterfly Dream: Ice-Fishing Haiku by Hilary Tann

English Original

season’s end

the ice-fishing tracks

fill with water

Upstate Dim Sum, Spring 2022

Hilary Tann 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

季節結束

這些冰釣軌跡

充滿了水

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

季节结束

这些冰钓轨迹

充满了水

Bio Sketch

Hilary Tann was a founding member of the Route 9 Haiku Group known for its biannual anthology of haiku and senryu, Upstate Dim Sum. Her work has appeared in various publications, including 20 issues of Upstate Dim Sum (2001-2010) and Mann Library Archive (December 2008). And she was also  an internationally acclaimed composer known for the lyricism and spirituality of her music and for her devotion to students over four decades of teaching at Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Butterfly Dream: Wild Bluebells Haiku by Marion Clarke

English Original

washing windows

the wild bluebells

bluer

Marion Clarke 

Chinese Translation (Traditional)

清洗窗戶

野生的風信子

看起來更藍

Chinese Translation (Simplified)

清洗窗户

野生的风信子

看起来更蓝

Bio Sketch

Marion Clarke is from the east coast of Northern Ireland. Growing up surrounded by the scenic shores of Carlingford Lough, the Mourne Mountains and Kilbroney Forest Park,  she was destined to write haiku.

A Poet's Roving Thoughts: Featured Poet in Issue 21, tsuri-dōrō

Issue #21 – May/June 2024

Featured Poet – Chen-ou Liu

        a white lie

        to cover another

        early snowfall

                          light of dawn

                          a tai chi master

                          pushes the silence

AA meeting

the stony silence

after I used to be …

                  my wife’s kiss

                  on the yellow post-it

                  paper anniversary

                  im-mi-grant ...

                  the way English tastes

                  on my tongue

Chen-ou Liu is currently the editor and translator of NeverEnding Story, and the author of two award-winning books, Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition). His tanka and haiku have been honored with 154 awards (as of May 2, 2024)

Note: I also have the following 2 haiku published in Issue 21, May/June 2024:

the spoken and unspoken

between my wife and me

pink blossom rain

virus outbreak

the hospital fountain

fills with coins