Trivialities

I happened upon this quote from George Eliot: "It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness -- calling their denial knowledge."

This quote about enjoying the little things is by way of introduction to the very small poems called haiku. Haiku is another form of poetry that we usually learn about in grade school -- its smallness makes it seem simple enough to talk about with small children; but the simplicity of haiku belies a potency and concentration sometimes difficult to find in the constant avalanche of verbiage that is a hallmark of our age. Haiku is the maple syrup of poetry, ideas found and then boiled into a sweet essence.

Typically we think of haiku as being in three lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllable, and 5 syllables again. Really, the parameters of a good haiku poems are pretty malleable. I do think that for writing your own haiku, 5-7-5 is a good starting place. Many haiku tend to have nature as a theme -- almost all traditional haiku have some reference to the natural world.

Here is a very well known haiku that you may have heard before by Basho, famous Japanese poet of the 17th century:

Clouds appear
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon

Here is my haiku -- as always, I hope you will write one too! (And then we can post it :)

Twigs blown down last fall
that laid all winter in the yard
have new leaves this spring