Under my shade tree,
scattered seeds cling to stems like
spent cocktail cherries
–Sarah Torribio
P.S.
I often ignore one of the true edicts of Japanese haiku, that the poem should reflect nature in both time and place. Haiku should be used to depict micro-seasons, those weeks that occur when something new and beautiful is happening.
Perhaps the cherry blossoms are blooming and people are celebration the traditionn of sakura viewwing the pink and white clouds of blooms and even picnicking–saki optional but preferred–beneath their canopies. Then comes the time you first hear the first crickets, historically speaking, there might be human activities like the time when the royal family used to travel by boat to a cool summer pavilion.
I often eschew the natural theme, because I’ve grown up a bit citified. Living in Los Angeles, I saw both blossoming orange trees and throbbing neon signs. Both are beautiful to me.
Now that I live in the desert in St. George, Utah, it can be difficult to chart micro-seasons because time goes by differently here. Spring and fall are wonderfully temperate and terribly short. Winter drags on, not generally with much snow but generally with a chill. Plants go dormant, and look like they’re never coming back to life.
Summer seems to stretch like one piece of dreamlike time, like an uncomfortable mirage. Imagine weeks on end with the temperature exceeding 112 degrees Fahrenheit. You can’t reason yourself out of the scorching weather by saying things like, “At least it’s a dry heat.”
I’m living at the far end of the Mohave desert, home to red cliffs and Joshua trees. If you’re not careful, spending time in the refreshingly dry heat will leave you looking like the bleach bones and cattle skulls that painter Georgia O’Keefe painted during the later part of her life.
Now that I”ve been here a few years, though, the micro-seasons are revealing themselves. There is the week-long bloom of the Bradford Pear Tree’s in backyards and front yards and lining avenues. The blossoms depart almost as soon as they arrive, drifting like snow with the help of brisk spring winds.
There is the micro-season comprising the incessant, machine-like hum of cicadas in the trees, the ‘Dog Days’ of summer. Before that comes the time where the heat of the stones and sidewalks and un-shaded patios and rocks and dirt becomes incompatible with bar feet and dog paws. If you’re gonna take a walk, you need to take it really early in the day or after dark. I’ve detailed this in a haiku called “St. George, Mid-June.”
And there’s much more nature and natural cycles on which to rhapsodize. The time (right now) where the prickly pears cacti hat abounds in Southern Utah bloom white. There are those evenings in the summer where small white bats–or are they dun-colored?–sloop down close to the surface while we swim, drawn by the luminescent aqua light of my swimming pool.
What are some of the micro-seasons you experience in your neck of the woods?
See more haiku by Sarah Torribio HERE
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