L P Navon • kabbalah • art • poetry • songs  • • • • connect

Hail

HAIKU

 

seemingly humble

and deceptively simple:

holy haiku !

 

or, more properly haiku-like:

 

pre dusk    bare trees    let

february light    straight    through

their dark branches   bright

 

or, another take (amongst several):

 

february first

pre dusk    bare trees    let the light

straight through    simple    right?

 

The virtues and charms of haiku are inexhaustible:

within (traditionally) its 3 lines of  5-7-5 syllables,

one can capture a moment in nature

as a kind of atmospheric snapshot

conveying surprising depths and layers.

 

Much of the haiku's power and beauty

comes from what seems at first

its direct, unvarnished simplicity,

but that almost always masks

wonderfully intuitive insights

about the Way Things Are (and interact).

This is largely accomplished

with a paradoxical zen mindset,

 juxtaposing fauna and flora

and observers and landscapes

and atmospheres and attitudes

against each other, thus unfolding

the poignant complexities bubbling

under all surfaces,

providing  insight

into the rich relationships

between the very varied strands,

eternally transient,

within the one web of existence.

 

Thanks to Basho, Issa, Buson, and others,

along with the many practitioners of the art of haiku

through the centuries and now in many languages,

we now enjoy a huge treasury of these encapsulations

to delight eyes, heart and minds...

 

Navon has written hundreds of these little poetic nuggets,

including some collected into short series,

in various, mostly natural, categories.

He has combined a goodly number of them

with directly targeted photographs,

with the intention of finishing the assembly

of the best into themed booklets....

 

Composing haiku has been a life-long pleasure,

and apart from Navon's songwriting

and his large collection of kabbalistic mantras,

it remains as his main ongoing poetic endeavor.

This is reflected in the fact that he usually sandwiches

public readings of his poetry

with a few haiku at the beginning

and a few more to conclude.

 

Senryu too

Also included are a few senryu,

possessing the same formal rules as haiku

but focused (often with wry humor)

on the human dimension,

rather than the natural world....

 

Hundreds of Haiku in very varied categories,

and some illustrated photographically,

will follow these first offerings,

Bright then Barren then Blossoming....