blossoming

blossoming cherry trees
I ask the waiter
for a window table
--Marleen Hulst,The Netherland

When trees are blooming, our hearts are lifted in a special way. Here in the Caribbean its from green green to burst of colour. The particularly significant burst of pinks and yellows of the Poui are a delight to the busiest and the most unassuming, How could it not touch us. In Japan there is a whole culture of hanami, the gathering of friends and family groups to watch the cherry petals of the trees in bloom burst open, then sail with the wind as they fall. In short blossoming trees are part of our conscious approach to delightfulness.
Marleen in her haiku takes this aesthetic consciousness to the next level. The persona asks to be placed in a position of this sphere of delight, its important enough not to want to miss it, its important enough to want to be in that plane of delight as long as this phenomenon is happening. Her haiku structure is peculiar rather than generic, she opts for a 6-5-6 form rather than 5-7-5; she personalises the expression of consciousness and as well the haiku presentation. This haiku resonates two levels of satiety, in the trees she will be viewing, as she eats the meal that will be served to her. Its not just about happening, no; her ku is loaded with anticipation. And into this drama of cognizance of 'the yet to be realised' we are catapulted. The action of this haiku is subtle, but carries a heightened sense of reality.

Well done Marleen
gillena cox
Caribbean Kigo Kukai - founder/co ordinator

The kigo was blossoming

rice

planting rice
the child on her back
soothed by song
--Marleen Hulst; The Netherlands


Those who commented on this haiku zeroed in on the basic uppermost theme of bonding; and i too, am swayed by this relationship spell of the unstated but presumed mother child companionship in the rice field; the setting presents the hope of nourishment; sustenance and furtherance to that love bond; we are taken further on the strains of her song to hungers sated not only for this child but to a world which will also be fed because of her back bent in supplication to the palate of so many, unawares of a meal first created in a song of love
She uses no kireji; her two images are clear and concise; the juxtaposition, stands on its own measure, of the progression of Marleen's direction of this scene. There is no surprise, there is no intrigue, only an esoteric binding cord; working hands, bent back, and care giving; crafted into a haiku, the likes of which the group nominated winner

Well done Marleen

--gillena cox
coordinator; Caribbean Kigo Kukai



the kigo was rice

calendar

east wind
the paper-thin days
of the calendar
--Bouwe Brouwer; The Netherlands


"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared." Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story "His Last Bow", published in 1917 but set in 1914, ends with Holmes addressing his assistant Doctor Watson on the eve of the First World War)


How fragile is this life we live, 'paper thin days' best describes to us, our mortality, and our existence in the wake of challenges - 'east wind'; but the calendar does not determine history, it merely records time. Truly all of creation is in God's hands; its up to us the players in this, the vast drama of the universe, to choose the 'high roads' or the 'low roads'; and all is consequent afterwards.
Bouwe's haiku is dramatic and provocative, in thirteen syllables, he presents to us a dish of rhetoric "What? of this our lives"

Well done Bouwe
--gillena cox
coordinator; Caribbean Kigo Kukai


the theme of the kukai was calendar