Traditionally, the Haiku developed in Japan by Basho adhered to a strict formula of lines, or 17 “moras,” something translated into lines of 5-7-5 in English syllables. It also contained a “kigo” a word that would identify the season, or something that would involve the natural world to evoke the season being described. But over the years that which we call Haiku has changed, the rules adapted, and its form evolved and taken in by other cultures so really almost any short poem adhering to a certain set of patterned syllables can be considered a “free form” version of the old art.
And that’s why Haiku is so perfect to describe my Auntie Honey, well, our Auntie Honey the woman who touched many and technically my great aunt. She was a small bird of a woman who defied a formulaic existence and made her own way of life. She was quiet by nature and a little shy but she got things, everything, and when she laughed it was with an almost embarrassed tee-hee that reverberated within her tiny frame and became a little louder if others were also laughing but it was quite the opposite of her sister-- my Nana’s full bellied out loud howl if you got in a good one around her.
What do these two have to do with Haiku? Well, Auntie Honey loved to write it and late in her life whenever she sent me letters she would never write in the card she sent, but would include a scrap of paper with a note in Haiku or a newspaper clipping of a Haiku from a poetry section in her paper. Today, I spent part of the morning looking at a packet of her Haikus, written when she was much younger, perhaps before I was born or at least when I was a child (there are no dates on these yellowed papers, and the pages themselves are slightly thinner, font clearly that from a type writer) and the only ink on them is my Nana’s handwritten title “Honey’s Haiku.”
Nana kindly bequeathed me a folder in a box that holds poems members of the family wrote and shared with her. Some are religious hymns written at the turn of the 20th century by those from her side of the family, and sadly, too many are poems I wrote her as birthday cards as a kid, the cheesy type that rhymes and sing, but hey, she loved them and told me enough by saving them all. But the treasure trove is in Auntie Honey’s Haiku. I think this is weekend was only the fourth time I’ve ever opened this folder—in ten years-- but it was time.
Today’s poems are a celebration of Auntie Honey’s Haiku. As any editor would do, I’ve selected a few that complement each other and center around the beauty of nature, something Honey valued and captures always a sense of feeling she had when out in it. I still do not believe in the fabled “Heaven” where we all meet at a cloudy location in the sky and live forever with our fellow dead loved ones, and I don’t think I ever will. But strangely, I do think that Auntie Honey, the spirit of her at least, is somehow still on this earth, maybe in the form of a little flower, nothing showy-- she wouldn’t like that-- but something green, something seasonal, a leaf on a filbert tree? There is so much wisdom in her terse verse. Sometimes it’s good to think maybe the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree after all.
Haiku by Helen “Honey” Carr
(Note: Honey wrote in all caps, on her typewriter and in her handwritten notes to me, so I will honor the author and keep it the way she made it.)
DEWDROPS FALL AT RANDOM
LIVES SHOULD HAVE PURPOSE
OH TO BE A DEWDROP.
CONFUSION IS MAN MADE
NOT IN THE STARS OR BIRDS
AND FLOWERS THAT BLOOM
THE DANDELION KISS
BLOWS SO HAPPILY
TO ITS DESTINATION
HAIKU IS THE HEART’S ECONOMY
VERY MUCH FELT
BUT LITTLE SAID
AFTER ALL ELSE FADE
AND DIE IN FALL THERE IS STILL
THE CRYSANTHAMUM
And, three by me...
Shutter Huddle
At my window
moths disguised as fallen leaves
winter crowds them out
Pocket Change
Day gales to night breeze
shaking copper pennied leaves
trees spending money
Fog
Drowsy eyelashes
slumbering across the land
moon drooped on a face
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