Heeding Haiku
34February 3, 2016 by petrujviljoen
Chevrefeuille is hosting Heeding Haiku on Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie today. I hope I managed classical haiku as per the brief. Kindly follow the link to the MLMM site for the full brief. I chose not to include a photo as I’d like the haiku to stand on its own. I made two:
(1)
landed bird’s wings spread
even slightest breeze consoles;
earth itself gasping
(2)
Storm clouds gathering
temperature yet reads high
Ah! Soft breeze stirring
I invite critical, incisive, constructive criticism please.
Haiga »
petrujviljoen 
I was so struck by how observant of nature you are. I recall birds’ wings lifting upon landing, but it just never registered. The image is so refreshing.
Thanks Nan! When are you coming to play with?
The first one reminds me of the winter birds at my feeder (for them) they hang on the metal netting pecking for the sunflower seeds. But when the wind is too strong they must spread their wings for balance.
At the moment heat is not an issue here. Winter being a cold season here. We still have snow left on the ground from blizzard. But I remember being in Italy one year during a drought – and even the small creeks were just dust… the only breezes found were when one moved into a shadow.
Thanks for visiting my post on the prompt. 🙂
Nice to meet your work again.
Likewise 🙂
Happy Lunar New Year.
It was on the 6th I think? I’ll look it up. So much more sensible than the current system.
Might have been… but even the different Asian cultures start on different days. Today the Google Art had the Monkeys, which inspired my daily piece here:
https://julesgemstonepages.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/ik-339-for-february-2016-wp/
🙂
Calendars are just as sensible as the different peoples that use them …I guess. There is much history involved in different calendars. 🙂
Guess you’re right. I think the Ethiopians, among others didn’t go over to the Gregorian calendar. I remember attending a new year event hosted by some Ethiopians while still living in Johannesburg. It was around this time.
If you google New Years you can pretty much pick any and every month on the Gregorian calendar. So we tease that if you made New Years resolutions that you didn’t follow that you can just wait for the Next New Year which might be the next month 🙂
Ha-ha-ha! I’ll do that. This time thing has me thoroughly confused.
I’m in South Easter, PA (USA) and it is February 8th, 2016 at about 11:00 am 🙂
It’s ten past six here in South Africa, north-east part of the country. It’s not just the time zones, I believe there isn’t 60mins in an hour any longer, but about 62! And east/west isn’t a fixed point on one’s horison, it shifts by over 40 degrees, busy photographing it. A cloudy day today so didn’t go out. We’ll have sunset at about 6.45, being still very much summer here.
Ah, you are 7 hours ahead then. –
so now at about 2 pm it is about 9 pm there. I hope you got to photograph your sunset…
Sending you an e-mail with a sunset photo.
Very nice haiku!
Thank you Carol!
You’re welcome!
These are wonderful … I have some difficulties to understand the English you have used, but that’s more the result of my knowledge of English. Long time no see by the way.
Hallo Kristjaan. I would really like to know what part of the writing you didn’t understand? Please expand?
I can’t imagine the terrible heat you’re talking about as I sit comfortably in my home on Lake Garda in Italy. Your haiku are very moving and the images concise … in the second line of your first haiku though the syllable count is off .. you have 8 syllables. You could overcome the problem by putting – ah in the place of even – or remove even and make breeze plural (then adjusting the vowel tense). Your second ku is delightful and so hopeful! Buona fortuna. Bastet
This is exactly the kind of feedback I’m looking for! Thank you! Will revise.
I’m happy .. to tell the truth I might probably wouldn’t have said anything without your encouragement to give useful criticism. 😉
Always please. I’ll put it in every post. I just took ‘the’ out and I think it reads okay but have the feeling it’s not such a strong haiku.
nicely done. it seems to me that you’ve met the challenge
Thank you!
For me the strongest line – first in first haiku; the last one – in second haiku.
Humbird, for some reason your comment landed in the spam folder so just saw it now. Thank you very much for the input, it’s appreciated!
I especially like #2. I think it puts me right inside the memories I have of summer days at many stages of life. I also like the line in #1 about gasping – definitely too hot, this day you are speaking of!
Thanks Claudia! We’ve been having incredibly hot days, and most of South Africa is in the throes of a dreadful drought.
Oh, that is a shame. But your haikus really conveyed that state of affairs. And what a contrast to us here at this time – we have had a lot of snow, and though the weather is in a mild streak right now, it is rainy and raw…
Rainy and raw … with snow. Would love to experience such weather. I’ve always wanted to travel to either Norway or Iceland or else to Antarctica just to experience such extremity, so different to South Africa. And currently the drought is worrying. Some people might starve. Busy planting my own food just in case! Here where I am we do still get rain but way not enough.
Where I live in Pennsylvania, US, we have four distinct seasons, and that is one thing I really love about living here. The year moves along and the changes give a sense of time visibly moving.
Here where I am too, a place called Graskop, Mpumalanga (looking east) except we have about two weeks of spring before it’s full summer. Other areas like the Karoo, a semi desert further south doesn’t have such distinct seasons, hot in the day and cold at night all year round, no or little rainfall.
A wonderful gem
Thanks you, appreciated. I do mean it about wanting very serious criticism. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings, I’ll be fine!