winter haiku hiking in Blackheath

At the moment in the mountains, it is hard to tell from day to day which season it is. It was very cold in April, then it warmed up again . In my garden, the young peach tree and the pouton seem to think it is spring, with blossoms and buds. There is a vibrancy to the turning leaves this year, brilliant oranges and reds as they relinquish their grip. I wrote this a couple of days before the haiku day, in Blackheath.

Blow me uphill
wind
like those autumn leaves

DL

But it was most definitely winter last Saturday, when the haikunis met at BANC.

Ginger spiced leaves
Scudding grey clouds
Winter nips autumn’s skirts

Cassy Hodge

They bravely donned layers of warm clothing and stepped forth into a strong wind and a grey spit-threat sky.

Haiku day
a sea of beanies
... observing

Peter Berbee

The piles of leaves in Blackheath’s streets were banked up against walls and gutters - quite nice, but lets get down into the gully and out of the wind.

Lungs gorged –sweet, cool air
Birds beckoning,
“Who goes there?”

Cassy Hodge

We had a long warming walk. How many things there are to write about and take pleasure in, even on such a day. It is remarkable how simply paying attention can produce poems like these in a few hours.

Dank rainforest litter
Mushroom skulking -
Peek-a-boo!

Cassy Hodge

Some of these haikus are a first draft, which is the way Shiki wrote his. My one below is word for word the way I wrote it in my notebook.

In old age
an act most powerful –
tree across the path

D L

wind in the trees
the rushing mountain stream
which sound is which ?

Glenys Jackson

Most have been re-drafted, which is generally the way that Basho worked.

birdsong in the wind

behind the tree

a waterfall

Matthew Johns

Diana, 23rd May 2009

I have just returned from a 3 day hike in the Wild Dogs with my daughter Ruby and her friend Adrian. This walk is part of my book "Into the Blue: Walking Gundungurra country". We were walking in wet weather, not ideal -

Large satisfied leech
hauls itself away
from Adrian's socks



- but how else could we take ourselves to Splendour Rock?

Between us
and the walls of Kanangra
bellbirds

Don't forget that a haiku day is coming up at Blackheath Area Neighbourhood Centre, in mid-May. See my post below for details.

HAIKU? JUMPING?? HAIK-ING?

The most famous haiku in the world is by great master Basho, seventeenth century Japanese poet, and, in translation by RH Blyth,

The old pond:
a frog jumps in –
the sound of the water

How simple! and yet how full – no part of the poet’s attention was missing. It is a moment in nature , full and complete in itself. I too, want to cultivate a mind as unblemished as that of Basho. One way to do it is to go into nature, be fully present, and write down in haiku form, what I experience.

Basho took the hokku, the first verse of a renga sequence written by a group of poets, and made it into a stand- alone verse. His idea has been taken up in other languages and thrives today as a form of nature poetry. It should not be confused with senryu, which is a satirical take on human affairs.

Here are my best verses for 2006, in roughly seasonal order:

Haiku:

Midday heat –
walkers soak up
the sound of water

Painted fingernails
poking through the earth -
bright red fungi

They’re calling us
over and over
the hidden birds

The trees conferring
amongst themselves
around the spring

(on Gulaga, a mountain sacred to the Yuin people, South Coast)



Senryu

Falling on
climate change protesters,
unusual rain

Here is a selection of the best haiku written on the Zen and Arts re-treat in April at Kodoji. We had three wonderful days of walking , bookmaking, seal-making, writing, sharing, reading, calligraphy from Jonathan, lino cut, drawing....

New crevices licked
by the swollen tongue
of mother creek

The green shack
dilapidating
like me

How the rain
has ruined your poo sculpture
hidden wombat!

Barefoot
like the Darkinjing –
swiftly flowing stream

Diana Levy

Like old brown socks
hanging from everything
stringybark

Why this tree?
the grey eucalyptus
a hundred butterflies!

Young girls chasing
the ground mist this evening
Kodoji sunset


Jonathan C

deep silence in the valley
and Cl-lang
goes the supper gong.


a tiny spider,
on a single thread
-butterflies frolic

Greg T

A family
conversing tenderly –
Turpentines.

Flood marks
high in the ti-tree –
how deep this path!


The disused road
cut off
by flowing creek.

Janet S
see www.janetselby.com.au


A creche of clouds
dabbed luminous pink
by the sun

Vivian A

rocks lump
like old muscle,

lichen spotted

flowering
from the inside out
petal flavoured

Cath C