Haiku ginko at Ben Roberts cafe

 

chipped toenail polish

the end of daylight saving -

autumn at last!

And what a perfect season to teach a group of storytellers about the art of writing haiku! The weather at Lawson in the Blue Mountains on Saturday the 26th of April was kind - not too cold, a fresh breeze, the odd bit of sunshine. We began our day by meditating at the Girl Guide Hall in Honour Ave. Then we walked through the autumn leaves in the middle of Honour Ave to Ben Roberts café, our home for the day.  Carolynne welcomed us with much-needed coffees and teas. After learning what makes a haiku, the group stepped out for a ginko - haiku walk. I am a believer in writing from life - writing while walking. In this way it can support a meditation practise, it makes you pay attention to what is unfolding around you. How can a haiku that one dreams up at one’s desk - some people call this a desk-ku - have makoto, sincere feeling? This was a quality that haiku poet Shiki (late 19th century) said should be found in good haiku.  He believed in the shasei (sketch from nature, and also in writing only one draft.

Here’s a haiku that works as a first draft, written by Gilion:

Waterfall

Sigh of wind

Car door slams

And here is one of mine, about a flower which I have tried again and again to capture.

sunshine wattle

wants to stage its show

too early

Acacia terminalis is hard to miss, and is one of the greatest pleasures of a late winter walk - or used to be.  I have noted the earlier and earlier flowering of this plant, in the 23 years I have been living in the Blue Mountains. The week before the haiku workshop I was in the Upper Mountains for a meditation retreat with Patrick Kearney, which involved lots of walking. Bizarre! I thought, when I saw the terminalis up there, replete with flower buds. It usually flowers up there in August,  the windy month. Plants always flower a bit earlier in the mid- or lower mountains, because the lower altitudes have a warmer climate. Near the bridge there was a terminalis with one flower open. Maybe terminalis is the ‘canary in the coalmine’ plant, as far as the changing climate is concerned. Suzy has been living on the land and she said, “Nature is going haywire”.

 

A. terminalis on King's Tableland

Another first draft:

a candelabra of banksias

resisting wind

              point to heaven 

Ffrances

We had a lovely walk down the creekline, and made it as far as the first bridge on the track to Adelina Falls.

Great master Basho (17th century) was at the opposite end of the spectrum as regards revising haiku. In his life as a professional haiku master, he wrote only 1,000 haiku, or should I say completed?

 Back at the café we were refreshed with home-made lemonade and lunch - yum, gluten-free orange cake with cream!  Then the ‘Basho’ work began over coffees, on haiku that didn’t seem to quite gel. We workshopped these as a whole group, just as a writers’ group would do, trying different words, a different word order, subtracting the unnecessary -  here are the results.

First Draft:	Final version:
Water lying in puddles show movement - waterfall.	Now whitely falling brown puddles barely moved. Marie
Where is the River? Up in the trees burbles Cheeky wind.   Shh.	A River? In the trees Cheeky wind burbles. Chardi
Dark crimson centred Heart shaped toadstool Insect etched white spots	Dark crimson heart Toadstool etching - Insect craft Gilion

But this one showed the most change, and became a haiku which implies much in just a few words. As Master Basho said, “What is so great about saying everything?”

A broken tree Reflected in the pool it feels like home.

Whole tree Broken in reflection - Looking in the pool Suzy Flowers

This haiku is full of feeling -  makoto. It took us quite a long time to wrangle this haiku into shape.

Here is one of mine, revised at home.

Faint frog as the aeroplane’s drone fades away

Faint frog ‘blurk’ as the aeroplane’s drone fades away

My thanks to the Girl Guides, Lawson group for the use of their hall, and to Carolynne Skinner at Ben Roberts café for hosting our workshop with such warmth and generosity.

Saturday arvo

the sportsman’s roar

carries through the trees

DL