At the bay-front cottage, near Rockport, Texas, I get more in touch with nature than I do at home in the city. Some haiku simply name the experience:
Sunlight warms shoulders;
wind whispers between fingers;
my senses awake.
Wind chasing the waves,*
setting the green sea foaming,
bending broad old oaks.
Others find metaphors in the natural events described:
Brisk wind, choppy waves.
In nature’s bright cathedral,
seagulls chant the hours.
Ten pelicans glide
silently overhead, like monks
processing to prayer.
I wrote that last haiku, in part, simply to preserve the memory of those ten pelicans, gliding right overhead, in line, one after another, without a single wingbeat.
Some haiku challenge us to remain observant:
Each day brings beauty
to those whose eyes are open:
Even weeds blossom.
Some speak to our deeper longings:
Humans rise, bustle;
The world, bright with morning,
Prays for one day’s peace.
And some simply invite us to experience life more fully:
Distant horizon,
kissing sky beyond bright waves,
calls, inviting, “Come!”
---by Bill
*Line borrowed from Kenneth Steven, “Painting,” in Iona: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete, 2021), p. 9.
