Haiku
I write Haiku as a way of cultivating an intuitive and open awareness of my surroundings. I usually write about nature, and I try to keep the 5-7-5 structure. Many modern haiku poets have adopted a freer and much sparer style. This makes for some beautiful poems, but it doesn’t work for me. (I tried writing like that for a while and published a few haiku in the contemporary journals, but in the end I found myself drawn back to the formal 5-7-5 structure, which seems to be less popular these days— though the wonderful Clark Strand has been doing a great job revitalizing this form .)
My interest in haiku is only partly aesthetic. I do like when a haiku carries a certain ephemeral beauty, but the main thing for me is the state of mind that the haiku helps to bring about and to express. When reading these little poems, please try to settle into them softly and read them with an open heart.
I’m still figuring out how to format and update this page. For now, please scroll and enjoy at your leisure. :)
Some new additions (July 2024)
How to say goodbye
to everything all at once?
One loving outbreath.
This is a “death poem,” written at a retreat on mindfulness of death at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (Feb 2024).
nightfall coming fast
the few remaining sparrows
teach me how to grieve
I wrote this one while listening to the birds at dusk and thinking of my mother, Katherine Kremm, who died in August 2021.
in perfect silence
a crescendo of blackbirds
bursting through the blue
This one came to me while driving north on 91 on a clear, quiet day.
At dusk I hear the gods:
the silken slap of oarsplash,
the cry of the loon.
This one came to me while kayaking. I bent the rules.
such perfect branches
swaying in silent prayer
on this burning earth
My gift to the oak:
warm tears, the only water
she’s tasted in weeks.
small poems of ecological conscience
Haiku from 2023
tickling my face
and the face of the mountain
cold New Hampshire rain
written December 2023
Jetavana Monastery, NH
after the snowfall
breathing in the frozen moon
clear mind, open heart
written December 2023
Jetavana Monastery, NH
singing in the rain
half-cloaked in cool morning mist
my friend, the sparrow
written June 2023
Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA
sunlight rippling
across the broad-backed river
two sparrows, one song
written summer 2023
on the Connecticut River, Western MA
sunless summer sky
the river and the raven
speaking in slant rhymes
written summer 2023
Deerfield River, Deerfield, MA
hunched in warm sunlight
like bowing to a Buddha
the rain-drenched cattails
written spring 2023
Deerfield, MA