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Category Archives: Haiku Way of Life

presentation-paper by Tom Clausen about the practice and way of a haiku life

why haiku

17 Friday Jun 2022

Posted by Tom Clausen in haiku, Haiku Way of Life

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haiku, lists, poetry, thoughts, why haiku

Some thoughts on Why We Write Haiku ( this list contains a lot of overlapping and was intended just as a consideration of what might be some reasons…)

to express gratitude

to report something real with honesty

to share something directly and concretely

to share and create meaning

to say something meaningful in as few words possible

to communicate

to find a voice

to give a voice to nature and discovery

to celebrate our connection to nature, to all that is non-human

to sharpen and develop our awareness as a witness

to express observable truth

to give praise

to celebrate existence

grounding and centering

transcendence

to express admiration

to identify those primordial forces we love or relate to

to feel a sense of purpose

to express our longing and belonging

love for our being here now

to express joy and happiness in a moment

to show what is lost and found

as a means of catharsis

to show the aha moment and suggest the wonder of existence

the desire to turn words into greater awareness and understanding

in the eternal search for meaning and identity

to maintain a healthy focus and awareness

to attain some levity or lightness to our being

prayer like reverence and respect for what is before us

to achieve some clarity

to reduce confusion

to express insight

to improve and gain relationships and understanding our place in the world

in hope of finding a peace of mind and heart

to have an epiphany

to reaffirm what we know but had forgotten…nostalgia for our child mind

for the practice and routine of forgetting ourselves

an alternative focus and refreshing point of view

alter-identity

as a release from what bothers us or distracts us from the poetic in our lives

as an antidote to anger

to exercise a spiritual communion with our place/world

to commune with the muse

to attain credibility

to fulfill the searching aspect of our being here now

to recognize what is mortal and immortal in us and our world

as a form of satori and connection

because we love poetry and sharing something

because we feel inspiration in moments freely found anyplace, anytime, anywhere

because we are in tune with a universal reality

to get some satisfaction

as a path out of depression

to find ‘the way’

to see and feel light

to report natural ‘news’

to commune with nature

nurture of a spiritual relation

to join a community of people sharing a poetic point of view

to be in the now

because we believe in nature and the poetic relationships small, large and wonderful

as a means of disciplined expression

in recognition of natural nuance

to exercise our senses

to praise the life in the inanimate

to write concisely

to write what is in the heart

to find our-self outside our-self

to respond to a calling

homework- review- by tom clausen

01 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by Tom Clausen in americana, Chapbooks, haiku, Haiku Way of Life, Lynx,, tanka, Published Poems, senryu, tanka

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book review, chapbook, family, family life, haiku, home, homework, life, poems, poetry, senryu, tanka, writing

Homework by Tom Clausen. Saddle-stitched, full color cover, 4″ x 6″, 36 pages. $10., ppd. ISBN: 1-903543-00-2. Order from Snapshots Press, 132 Crosby, Liverpool, L23 8XS, England.

To quote the jacket notes: “Focusing squarely on domestic life, this collection of haiku, senryu, and tanka is often funny, often sad and always paradoxically both familiar and eye-opening.” It cannot be said better nor more succinctly what this newest book by Tom Clausen contains. I can only add my continuing praise for Tom’s work. It is always a revelation and delight how he seizes on the tiniest experience, and through his examination of it and the cool observation his own feelings, carries it over into a major event. This leaves the reader wondering, “Now, why did I not notice that?” and “Why did I not think of that as material for a poem?”. It seems that tanka is especially designed for the methods of Tom Clausen. Even when aware of the smallest thing, he is also aware of how that thing or event is affecting him. This occurs even in his haiku.

While some purists might fault his haiku for not being closely enough aligned with the nature-nature viewpoint, his sensibilities are absolutely accurate for tanka. This collection gains, I think, by the inclusion of his haiku (which often portray the lighter moments of family living). They seem to play off and actually highlight the attributes of his tanka. Altogether, the editing and arrangement of the poems seems especially fine and relevant. For anyone who has grown up in a family or is living in a family now, this book will take away those terrible moments of aloneness when one felt that no one else in the world ever had such moments of doubt, despair and pure undiluted joy. Tom has been there, and he has the courage to face them directly and honestly, and to continue to hang with the feelings until he has created pure poetry out of them.

no longer me
it proves a mystery who it is
I’ve become
walking around this house
with my family there inside

I sort of knew
my coffee cup
was empty –
so much I look in it
just to see

The sensitivity of the editor, John Barlow, is shown in the choice of a drawing done by Tom’s young daughter, Emma Clausen, as cover along with the insider joke of the title of the book – Homework. Delight piles on delight with this one. Review written by Jane Reichhold

Why We Write Haiku by Tom Clausen

23 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by Tom Clausen in clouds, Favorite Haiku, haiku, Haiku Way of Life, Ithaca, landscapes, nature, poems and photos, sun, sunsets, Wabi Sabi

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art, haiku, inspiration, life, photography, photos, poetry, relationships, sunsets, writing

Why We Write Haiku ( this list contains alot of overlapping and was intended just as a consideration of what might be some reasons…)

to express gratitude
to report something real with honesty
to share something directly and concretely
to share and create meaning
to say something meaningful in as few words possible
to communicate
to find a voice
to give a voice to nature and discovery
to celebrate our connection to nature, to all that is non-human
to sharpen and develop our awareness as a witness
to express observable truth
to give praise
to celebrate existence
grounding and centering
transcendence
to express admiration
to identify those primordial forces we love or relate to
to feel a sense of purpose
to express our longing and belonging
love for our being here now
to express joy and happiness in a moment
to show what is lost and found
as a means of catharsis
to show the aha moment and suggest the wonder of existence
the desire to turn words into greater awareness and understanding
in the eternal search for meaning and identity
to maintain a healthy focus and awareness
to attain some levity or lightness to our being
prayer like reverence and respect for what is before us
to achieve some clarity
to reduce confusion
to express insight
to improve and gain relationships and understanding our place in the world
in hope of finding a peace of mind and heart
to have an epiphany
to reaffirm what we know but had forgotten…nostalgia for our child mind
for the practice and routine of forgetting ourselves
an alternative focus and refreshing point of view
alter-identity
as a release from what bothers us or distracts us from the poetic in our lives
as an antidote to anger
to exercise a spiritual communion with our place in this world
to commune with the muse
to attain credibility
to fulfill the searching aspect of our being here now
to recognize what is mortal and immortal in us and our world
as a form of satori and connection
because we love poetry and sharing something
because we feel inspiration in moments freely found anyplace, anytime, anywhere
because we are in tune with a universal reality
to get some satisfaction
as a path out of depression
to find ‘the way’
to see and feel light
to report natural ‘news’
to commune with nature
nurture of a spiritual relation
to join a community of people sharing a poetic point of view
to be in the now
because we believe in nature and the poetic relationships small, large and wonderful
as a means of disciplined expression
in recognition of natural nuance
to exercise our senses
to praise the life in the inanimate
to write concisely
to write what is in the heart
to find our-self outside our-self
to respond to a calling
to give voice to wabi -sabi aesthetics
to be at home on this seamless journey through the here and now

 

Sun setting in some clouds on west hill... from Hungerford Hill Rd.-east hill today 6-21-15.

life of leaves by tom clausen

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Tom Clausen in americana, autumn, close up details, haiku, Haiku Way of Life, Ithaca, lakes and rivers, landscapes, leaves, nature, paths, poems and photos, trees, Wabi Sabi

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art, autumn, haiku, leaves, nature, photography, photos, poetry

first one leaf
then another and another
and another…

 

leaves-neatly-gathered-in-the-stream-the-stream-flow-was-going-from-left-to-right-seems-so-unlikely-that-leaves-would-have-piled-up-so-neatly-like-this-i-stood-staring-at-this-making-sure-i-was
leaves-piling-up-one-by-one-so-neatly
a-leaf-jam-on-cascadilla-creek
a-leaf-expresses-itself
so-many-leaves-some-have-left-their-mark
so-many-leaves-some-have-left-their-mark
leaf-caught
as-we-talk-wind-blowing-leaves-out-of-the-trees
the-sound-of-leaves-upon-leaves

the shire by tom clausen

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by Tom Clausen in close up details, gardens, Haiku Way of Life, landscapes, nature, paths, plants, poems and photos, summer, Wabi Sabi

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art, beauty, crickets, design, details, dreams, found art, haiku, lichens, meditation, nature, peace, photography, poetry, quiet, reflections, repose, serenity, statues, stone, summer, time, wabi sabi, walking, witness, zen

within the syllable
of silence…
one cricket

 

 

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dscn5918
dscn5919
dscn5920
dscn5921
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A Haiku Way of Life- thoughts on the spirit and practice

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Tom Clausen in Haiku Way of Life

≈ 3 Comments

A HAIKU WAY OF LIFE 

[]                 by Tom Clausen

A beginning place for me is to go back to the haiku I read and the various books and essays about haiku which made indelible impressions and so captivated me at that time. To this day, the gift and sense of those earliest readings remain very strong.The first haiku I encountered were in Cor van den Heuvel’s HAIKU ANTHOLOGY, R.H. Blyth’s multi-volume series and numerous individual books by authors I discovered through Cor’s Anthology.

Ten years ago, when I first dipped my toe into the haiku pond rather tentatively, I was nervous with excitement and amazed at how kindred and welcoming my first contacts were. The feeling that I got from haiku was true gladness to have discovered a manner of expression that completely clicks for me – it just simply felt right, perfectly concise, precise and not telling me how or what to feel as much as simply giving me the wholly decent chance to get there on my own.  The brevity and discipline of the haiku form was the obvious antidote to combat my tendency toward wordiness, overstatement and excess. It was entirely refreshing to me that haiku insisted on the writer utilizing the fewest words possible – to convey the poetic in the ordinary anywhere, anytime.

I can remember early on being so happy with haiku that internally I vowed to read and write haiku for the rest of my life. Such was the appeal and strength of feeling I had then and still have to this day.

Admittedly, in these past ten years there have been moments of doubt, dry spells, lulls and wonders – if I had maybe lost my way and lost interest in haiku. Yet repeatedly, I’ve discovered that reading haiku and finding good poems can and will spark my interest and get me going again. A great haiku is its own best endorsement. To read a great haiku is bound to reinvigorate anyone who has at any time felt the magnetic charm of haiku. The true satisfaction I get from each great haiku is but one of the reasons I avidly remain engaged and feel assured now as I did ten years ago, that I’ll keep reading and writing for a long time to come if not for the rest of my life.

Haiku puzzle me. There are many haiku I read that don’t move me and do disappoint. Yet I find most haiku at least pleasant and many I find wonderfully intriguing, even inspiring. The very best haiku often appear seamlessly “easy” to have written. This, of course, is rarely so, which makes the illusion of ease beguiling. Speaking for myself here, I feel no closer to any consistent ability to write a good haiku now than I did when I began ten years ago. This phenomena is both compelling to keep at it, and of course, a bit to a lot frustrating. It does guarantee a perpetual state of beginningness that is somewhat unique and humbling. It is quite appealing that haiku are highly portable and can be worked on as an exercise in the mind wherever you are until it becomes itself, just right.

John Stevenson once wrote in a letter to me that he viewed his joining the haiku community on the order of moving to a new small town where the community was both welcoming and eclectically interesting. I knew what he meant – it spoke well for my own sense of connection and camaraderie that began almost immediately after I read a news article in an Ithaca paper profiling Ruth Yarrow.  Shortly after reading this awakening article, I sought out anything “haiku” I could find – my first source was Cor’s HAIKU ANTHOLOGY through which I then subscribed to Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Wind Chimes and Brussel Sprouts, to name a few.

The breadth and brilliance I discovered in the many voices I read at that time instantly aroused in me a sense of deep inner knowing and inspiration that is the connection of a well-conceived haiku. I’ll never forget the initial immersion and beautiful opining I felt reading poems like these from Cor’s Anthology:

 

                                     time after time
                  caterpillar climbs this broken stem
                                     then probes beyond

                                                 – James Hackett
                                         the swan’s head
                                      turns away from sunset
                                             to his dark side

                                                     – Anita Virgil
                                                 hot night
                                            turning the pillow
                                             to the cool side

                                          – Cor van den Heuvel

And the following two by John Wills that are haunting in their dreamlike poignancy: 

                                              the river
                                        leans upon the snag
                                            a moment

I am so drawn to that snag, the force of that river and that perfectly rendered moment where the snag no longer can hold forth and surrenders. It is staggering that eight words can convey something so evocative and dynamic. 

                                            boulders
                                    just beneath the boat
                                            it’s dawn

Here we are given the earth, the waters and the heavens, with us in the boat to help us recognize just where we are in this life – very much in between all these eternal forces.These poems and many others I’d love to share, compel me to constantly search for the next holy or purely precious haiku. I thoroughly enjoy the arrival of each new haiku magazine and the perusal that follows. I keep notebooks of my personal favorites and enjoy the internal sensation that goes into each selection.

With my own writing, I have learned repeatedly not to trust myself and to graciously place my trust in the editors, haiku community, friends and my wife to discern what is truly worthy of being submitted or published. Here is my sense of what goes into haiku creation – from a letter written to Jim Kacian:

Over the years I’ve valued very much the little notes of feedback from editors – we each find our way more or less collectively by virtue of the community where the group is constantly giving guidance to the individual. I often feel than any little success I’ve had is less about me and more about the range of editors and haiku friends, and the guidance I’ve received simply be reading widely what’s out there, then forgetting it, but letting the spirit of it seep into and permeate my
being …

I am tremendously grateful for the work of editors who in tireless devotion sift and cull from the masses of submission those that they deem worthy. The number of off-base, uninspired, and maybe even embarrassing attempts at haiku I’ve created over this past decade is highly relevant to why I must keep at it. With hope that an improved sense of craft and consistency will develop!

Somewhere I read that Basho wrote about 2000 haiku in his life of which 100 or so are considered excellent, and of which he believed there were maybe ten that truly hit the mark. This is a tough ratio but perhaps holds a realistic perspective for us all. Excellent haiku craft requires tireless resolve to keep at it despite the misses and bunches of weaker attempts, with hope that out of the effort will surely come some keepers, and, if we are lucky, serendipity may provide an opportunity to create a haiku that will stand the test of time.

There is no way to predict what will become worthy, but the whole process of jotting notes, refining, submitting and seeing what gets selected is a near endless divination of what is and is not haiku. This could playfully be called the Haiku Wars and they are no doubt as endless as the poets putting their heart into the form. It is worth keeping at it just to see what and who next will break the surface of our haiku pond, either jumping in, feeding or getting out.

A major reason I keep reading haiku is that I hope to find good ones or another haiku that simply “wows” me and fills me with a grateful sense of being alive, so that I am one with that haiku moment (even if just a flash!).

At work nearly ten years ago, I posted this poem by Ryokan:

 

                                the thief left it behind
                                          the moon
                                    at the window

No matter when or how many times I read and feel this poem’s koan quality, I am glad for it, for myself, for all life, for this world. Perfectly, in three lines is the solace of truth and mystery conceived.A real blessing of haiku is its portable, direct simplicity that allows a favorite poem to be kept in mind. As I prepared what to say today, I opened a fortune cookie that seems right to share here today, and perhaps holds the key to what appeals above all else in each of us about haiku:

Keep it simple. The more you say
the less people remember. 

In this spirit, a haiku by Ruth Yarrow that I’ve meditated on over and over:

                  after the garden party        the garden

This great one liner says practically all I could want to say about human existence. We each are part of a garden party, yes, but the garden after the party is the place we alone seek out to find ourselves and our deepest nature.Once on a hospital form, under the category of religious affiliation, I checked “other” and wrote “haiku.” Haiku to me is a way of life, a choice of focus and a form of spiritual appreciation requiring us – reminding us to see beyond self or as Basho said, Haiku is simply what is happening in this place at this moment.

HAIKU HAPPENS, as a bumper sticker proclaims, will happen to us only if we remain open and ready to engage in the range of myriad nuances and subtle cues from nature that are voices simultaneously taking us inward and outward, connecting us with the nature we have come from and will return to.

In R.H. Blyth’s THE HISTORY OF HAIKU, he lists thirteen characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand. They are:

  1.  Selflessness
  2.  Loneliness
  3.  Grateful acceptance
  4.  Wordlessness
  5.  Non-intellectuality
  6.  Contradictoriness
  7.  Humor
  8.  Freedom
  9.  Non-morality
10.  Simplicity
11.  Materiality
12.  Love
13.  Courage 

These all appeal to me as affirmations and good qualities to navigate our life stream with. The practice of reading and writing certainly serves to hone these qualities. To extend the spirit of R.H. Blyth’s list, I’ve come up with my own additional thirteen characteristics:
  1.  Faith
  2.  Sharing
  3.  Discipline
  4.  Concision
  5.  Solitude
  6.  Humility
  7.  Awareness
  8.  Ritual
  9.  Creativity
10.  Centering
11.  Truthfulness
12.  Curiosity
13.  Patience 

I’d like to discuss briefly each of these 13 characteristics and explain what about each of them might serve to sustain a haiku interest. 

FAITH

Haiku, to me, is a faith in all of nature. The changes in nature are infinite and yet, as with all changes, there is a return to where things begin. The miracle of cycles large and small provides that each nuance of nature is unique and at once universal. These billions of nuances provide sensations that are faithful, and it is these matters that comprise the subject and feelings that are haiku. In my nearly 50 years, I’ve come to be entirely enchanted by the flow of seasonal changes, shift by shift, subtle and dramatic, that without fail, are induced like birth itself , by a magical timing that makes every moment the conclusion of a ripening – our weather, our day and night gives each creature a chance to sleep and be reborn to greet a new day as it truly is . . .  a new chance.The past and the future are not real in the sense that only the present tense, always now, is really happening. Past and future are mere abstractions, inaccurate memories and predictions. Haiku as faith is the poetry of the here and now, and focuses us on the reality that this is all we have – ever.

 

SHARING

A haiku for me is often, if not always, conceived and worked on in solitude, yet the essential path that sanctifies or completes the creation is when that poetic moment reaches someone else and creates within them a sensation that in some way approaches that which gave rise to the haiku. Without a reader, without sharing, a haiku is like a seed adrift on a breeze … waiting to be received.By nature, I am more of a loner and a seeker of solitude than a social being. However, I learned long ago I am uncomfortable being always alone. Haiku then, for me, provides the perfect medium for recording what transpires for me in solitude, sharing these fillings and learning which, is any, of these resonate with others.

 

DISCIPLINE

To write haiku, one must remain aware, ready, open, and sensitive. For myself, I can sense when my life manner is eroding and getting out of balance. When this happens, it is usually because my pace has become too fast, my priorities mixed up, and motives far removed from natural rhythms. Living in a way where one is a true witness to nature, as one must be to write haiku, is a discipline which encourages and even demands a constant contact with a deeper understanding. 

CONCISION

This may be as critical as any quality as to why I personally must continue to read and write haiku. I have a lifelong tendency to overwrite, to say too much and generally revel in excess. What better antidote to this then than haiku? 

SOLITUDE

In solitude we find the beauty of seeing things on their own terms. Nature naturally, quietly speaks for herself. No human values, pronouncements or expectations need intervene. Being alone in nature allows us to be as a ghost, without distraction, open, ready and able to experience purely. 

HUMILITY

The haiku perspective, by recognizing poetry in the affairs of things, gives to all creation an equal footing. Aside from this humility, which is an essential part in the act of writing haiku, I’ve found to be at times extremely humbling. To fiddle and fumble with a few little words, trying them this way, then that, without being able to get them just right, shows how difficult it is to write a good haiku, however simple the result may seem. 

AWARENESS

This is the readiness to fully read then record the poetic messages that constantly surround us. 

RITUAL

Haiku encourages a heightened awareness of the pageant that is the flow of the seasons. By embracing seasonal changes, we create an honoring ritual acknowledging the inevitability of our involvement in the constant state of passage. 

CREATIVITY

To read and write haiku, one must have a desire to fulfill the inner calling to create, and to express in words that which gives us the “ah” or “aha” quality in life.Anita Virgil, in her essay “When Is A Haiku?” (Red Moon 1997 Anthology), wrote It happens to us all. It makes one say or think or feel – ah! as we suddenly see the ordinary in a new light. It is a moment of intuition, an insight into the vital inevitability of things as R.H. Blyth calls it. It can be a glimpse of the beauty or cosmic humor of life, of pathos, of poignancy or paradox. It can be intensified awareness of natural phenomena which reflect human emotion. One does not wish to lose this moment. One wants to share it with someone or record it for one’s own enjoyment. Whatever the impetus, these moments serve to point up our aliveness and connection with the world, our brief time upon the earth. They point to our very humanity.

Creativity is moving with one’s life and recognizing it to be worth recording and recreating in part of in whole.

 

CENTERING

Jim Kacian, in his new book, SIX DIRECTIONS, states, Through the cumulative effects of small moments, we expand our sense of the universe to its full size, that the only way out of a circle is through its center. He goes one to state, If we did not believe the former, we would not believe in haiku as a way and a means. When we pass through the center, subject and object, time and space disappear and we move outside of the plane where we began, infinity, eternally changed.Haiku is effectively a centering. Whether reading or writing haiku, the bottom line is one must enter the moment wholeheartedly, becoming in essence one with the moment – centered in it.

No one escapes unscathed the pains and burdens in life. We each develop ways of dealing with these inevitable aspects of life. For me, haiku and the centering that it inspires has provided a useful strategy for coping with more difficult times. At times, our existence creates a paradoxical tension where we feel a potential to be unified with everyone and everything, yet feel simultaneously, every alone and separate . . . to me, a haiku is a harmonizing of unity and separation.

 

TRUTHFULNESS

In the preface to HAIKU, Vol. I, R.H. Blyth states, Haiku does not aim at beauty. Like the music of Bach, it aims at significance, and some kind of beauty is found hovering near. The real nature of each thing, and more so of all things is a poetical one. Haiku shows us what we knew all the time, but did not know we knew; it shows us that we are poets insofar as we live at all.Haiku are kernels of truth, unadulterated by opinion, emotion, through or desire. They stand bare boned and crystal clear to exact the truth of what is.

Basho, in the following taken from Eric Amann’s highly recommended book on haiku, WORDLESS POEM, further suggests the utter truthfulness of haiku when he states, Haiku are a way of seeing, hearing and feeling, a special state of consciousness in which we grasp intuitively the identity of people and nature and the continuity between ourselves and the larger cosmos.

Further, Basho said, Learn from the pine about the pine, from the bamboo about the bamboo. But always leave your old self behind, otherwise it will get between you and the object. Poetry springs out of its own when you and the object have become one, when you have looked deep into nature to see the hidden gleam. No matter how well worded your poems may be, if the feeling is not natural, if you and object have not become one, your poems are not true haiku, but merely imitations of reality.

 

CURIOSITY

Reading and writing haiku allows an exercise of one’s naturally felt curiosity about life and the world. The subject of haiku is often obvious, but requires the relation to the subject to reflect the subtle and magical occurrences and interactions always in our midst. 

PATIENCE

This quality may be more personal than universal, but I’ve found that haiku are not always there for me to write. Much as I’d love to write a haiku a day or even more, the reality is, I can’t. My ability to produce is more on a sporadic level and between attempts, there are definite “dry spells” which require much patience to wait through.Having gone through my 13 reasons, I’d like to give another  incentive for my involvement with haiku: I love to get mail! Even as a child, my love of mail led me to write for travel brochures, to railroads, pencil companies – anyone who might respond with something for me in the daily mail delivery. Since joining the haiku community, I have discovered a wonderful treasure-trove of correspondence – not only do I get mail, but it is of a highly enjoyable and special nature.

I’d like to conclude with a final thought that summarizes what sustains my haiku habit. Haiku for me is the perfect record of my simply existing here and now. Each haiku, in a way, can be thought of as a farewell poem – an acceptance of the transitory nature of everything. Reading entries from a lifetime’s worth of my journals is at this point, only of minimal interest to me, and I’m sure not even that to anyone else. Yet the better of those haiku I’ve written, I am pleased to return to and would be happy to have someone else find and read someday.

 the damsel fly leaving
the lily again and again
        only to return 

The above paper was read by the author at the Haiku Society of America meeting, September 19, 1998.  Grateful thanks to the poets for permission
to reprint their haiku here.

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Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves   – Basho

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Aden C on listening to the silence…
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