You’ve heard haiku talked about as a product of Japan. After 50 years of life related to Japan, I can attest that haiku is definitely important to them and has become very helpful to my life.
To me the northern part of Japan is much like our land here in Iowa—much of it devoted to farming.
Their folk-art farmhouses had no central heating, however, and so a huge fire pit was the center of the main room. The farmers, being out of work because of the deep snow, used their time weaving cloth on looms, tying persimmons onto long stretches of rope which they hung to dry and eat, or sitting on the floor around their crackling fire pits reading stories, eating mikan (something like tangerines), and writing poetry, especially haiku.
The idea of haiku is to be able to describe one of the many ordinary things I see or think about in my daily life … but in only 17 syllables—divided up into three lines, with 5 in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 more in the third. These short vignettes usually allude to the season, and the third line often expresses a surprise realization that came to you.
Writing a Haiku forces me to pare my description down to “the essence” of the subject or my experience of it. Haiku does not use a lot of unnecessary words to do the job. It’s tricky, but pleasantly and playfully challenging. And what a way to keep your mind off the sterner aspects of daily winter living!
Here are two we came up with … that we purposely made amateur so that you wouldn’t feel threatened if you felt like trying it yourself. (Ha!)
Haiku by Bob
All day long it’s ZOOM,
Struggling with the internet.
Oops! Zoom on the ice!
Haiku by Carol
below zero freeze
body rebels against air
from open window
—Bob Engler and Carol Nilles, volunteers and friends of Prairiewoods