haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering! 8th June - we are back!!

haikaiTALKS: season words / seasonal reference | a saturday gathering_under the banyan tree

host: Lev Hart

8th June 2024

haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering_under the banyan tree

The Seasons: Part 1

In the following verse, how does the season affect the verse? What if the haiku had begun with a different season? Since the haiku’s activity occurs indoors, how is the season relevant?

spring moon

mother darning a sock

by the window

(Keiko Izawa, HAIKUsutradhar, Apr 25, 2023)

Spring and motherhood represent the same stage in the circle of life. Spring is this stage in macrocosm; motherhood, in microcosm. Cultures around the world and throughout time have associated motherhood with Spring, the season when flora and fauna reproduce. Spring is the season of renewal. The mother renews a sock. The spring moon is her tacit metaphor. The mother becomes contextualized in terms of the circle of life, the seasons’ eternal cycle. Her identification with the spring moon creates a sense of the sublime, yugen. The same context gives her sabi. The moment is all the more beautiful for being ephemeral.

Perhaps the mother is darning because she cannot afford new socks. She might by working by moonlight because she has no money for electricity, or because her home is simply one room, where the rest of the family is sleeping. However, the harmony of the images suggests happiness, not hardship. The mother might be poor, but she is not unhappy. Happiness, of course, is also associated with Spring. This feeling, the spring moon, and the mother are all interconnected. If L1 featured “winter moon,” hardship would be emphasized, winter being the season of want. Throughout the world, Winter is also associated with age and death. By the winter moon, the reader would see the mother in a very different light.

Seasonal references, as Keiko’s verse demonstrates, deepen haiku. Her verse communicates with every reader who has experienced Spring --- I do not necessarily mean the season starting in March. Spring is whenever the circle of life begins anew in the poet’s homeland, as dawns appear earlier, sunshine gets brighter, and days grow longer. Birds and animals return from migrations. Other animals come out of hibernation; and humans, from winter seclusion. Plants begin to sprout and blossom. Humans start planting. Animals, including humans, begin their respective mating rituals. Spring, because of its significance and the fact that our species has experienced it over a hundred thousand times, has become linked to countless natural phenomena, meanings and feelings, e.g.: new life, hope, peace, love, desire, youth… Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to compose 2 verses with images expressing Spring, as it appears in your homeland. Let your images “show” the feeling and meaning of Spring, as you know it.

Your host for haikaiTALKS Lev Hart

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This is a beautiful start, Lev.

Thank you for doing this for us. Members,

Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_

This is an exciting phase for haikaiTALKS! Have fun! Keep writing and commenting! _kala