I was enjoying outside the other day, when a chance encounter with nature happened. I recorded it:
blow in the wind
ha ga kaze ni mau no o mite iru
I was sitting outside, watching nature while reading my book. Although the temperature has finally started dropping a bit in the evenings here, the leaves have not even started to change, and we are even further from when they start to fall. Nevertheless, one did flutter past me while I was sitting there after a particularly strong wind gust. Perhaps it had been loosened by one of the typhoon we've had recently. At any rate, as I watched it fall to the ground, this simple descriptive haiku came to me.
It strikes me very much in the style of Santōka. He was a wandering Zen monk who crisscrossed Japan on foot, drinking and writing haiku the entire way. He eschewed the traditional 5-7-5 structure and followed a much more—and usually even shorter—free-form style. Whether mine above is similar to a haiku from him that I've read before, or simply reminiscent of his style, I couldn't say; I just know mine makes me think of him.
It also calls to mind—and this is another association I made only after writing it—a scene from American Beauty when they are watching a short film of a bag being blown to and from by the wind, fluttering this way and that, surrendering to nature, dancing in the breeze. As he says in that movie Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world.
A common falling leaves kigo (season word) would be momiji chiru (紅葉散る), but there are others. They are all kigo for winter, which is a bit away from where we are now. Leaves, of course, do start to fall during the autumn in Japan, but in the Japanese traditional view, the colored leaves were for autumn, but falling leaves indicated autumn was now over and gave an image more of winter.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon. |
It is finally a pleasant autumn. I hope the heat doesn't return again.
Lovely haiku. Haiku doesn't have to be 5,7,5! I didn't know that😲
I have only ever created them in elementary and junior high school classes, reluctantly.
Look up Santōka or Hosai if you want to read some amazing free-form haiku. Some are very very short. Maybe you have heard Hosai's very famous haiku: 咳をしても一人. I think making a haiku free-form gives it more surprise and impact than just staying with the standard 17 syllables.
Do you ever read Nick Caves Red Hand Files? For the 300th, he asked the readers what bought them joy. I encourage you to read a few. Each could be turned into haiku. I imagine it's what the masters were very good at.
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/joy/
I read through more than a few. That's really nice! I bookmarked it so I can return to it more.
It's gorgeous isn't it? I am really glad you liked it.