Red Letter Poem #278
Six Autumn Haiku
tall oaks
a first grader whistles
an acorn cap
an acorn
in its mouth
autumn silence
another equinox
catching up to the acorn
I kicked ahead
I blame Basho and his illustrious “crow on a bare branch.” I know full well that the tradition of Japanese haiku explores/celebrates every season and every conceivable mood. But hearing the word, my mind invariably brings me to autumn, and a darkening sky rich with melancholy. So I invited Brad Bennett to return to the Red Letter forum with a sampling of his haiku for the current season, fully expecting that he’d remind us all of how complex, diverse, and wonderfully subtle the genre can be. Perhaps you’ll remember Brad, an accomplished writer and teacher of American haiku, from his earlier appearances here. His fourth collection from Red Moon Press, a rush of doves, was just published this year, and he’s the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Touchstone Haiku Award, and The Heron's Nest Reader's Choice Haiku of the Year. But Brad is not simply a talented poet; he possesses a quality that skill alone cannot achieve: authenticity. As with all the great haiku masters following in Basho’s footsteps, this art form was intended as more than a poetic style, but a way of life––a daily practice that alters what each poet experiences in the world and thus what he or she carries to the page.
It’s useful to think of haiku, not as a small poem but as a mammoth one––a hundred-line lyric impossibly condensed into a diminutive package. If a revised poem is the sum of a countless choices, great and small, this must be true as well of a poem containing a mere handful of syllables. The very fact of its brevity seems to entice readers to come close. But it’s only when we attempt to pull at the metaphorical bow that binds the package––to question what we sense is waiting inside––that we begin to realize what’s being offered to us. These poems are sometimes playful, sometimes somber, but always engaged with the tension between clarity of experience and the ambiguity of implication. Haiku presents a moment of unusual complexity––part of which is centered on a more acute experience of the shared world; but an equally-important part revolves around the inner mechanics of a consciousness contending with language, discovering something about its own nature. I hesitate to say too much about each of Brad’s poems for fear of undermining your own intuitive approach––but perhaps I can comment on how my mind first pulled at each bow, watching as the package began offering up its surprising contents. Starting with “tall oaks…,” it presents an innocent childhood memory, turning the acorn cap into a shrill whistle. Of course, we can’t help remembering the old adage (whose roots, surprisingly, lie with Chaucer’s 14th-century poetry): from little acorns mighty oaks grow. Something much grander is being trumpeted in even our simplest memories. “an acorn/ in its mouth/ autumn silence” ups the ante considerably, making us aware of the inner grammar of perception––in whose mouth is this nut captured: a squirrel, perhaps, observed on a branch, staving off hunger? The autumn silence itself? But when I read “another equinox…” I found myself stilled by the possibilities. Because we grasp the utter everydayness of the action––making a little game of kicking an acorn while on a solitary autumn stroll––the heart quakes just a bit to feel how quickly another year has passed, and how our aims did or did not guide us.
raspy cough
a pause to pluck leaves
from rake tines
autumn maple
a shadow races
to meet its leaf
a hole
in the falling leaf
tumbling sky
––Brad Bennett
Here, in this little suite of autumn-leaf poems, the typical focus on the showy colors never comes into play. Rather, “raspy cough…” hints at the body’s fragility, while the clatter of those hard consonants (pause…pluck…rake…tines) almost seems to catch in the throat. Even now, imagining those once-green leaves, brittle in the claws of the rake, makes me shudder with a terrible apprehension. “autumn maple…” feels like an emblem of mortal inevitability, our shadow (the dark reflection of our sunlit world) racing to confront us, an action we are powerless to delay. We are minds toppling into a new awareness––and unlike other creatures, we can’t help but see what’s coming. But then I read a poem like: “a hole/ in the falling leaf/ tumbling sky” and the roof of the imagination is blown open, transcendent possibilities becoming suddenly available. Through the window of that tiny decay, that inevitable loss, the dizzying heavens can be glimpsed. Indeed! A potent haiku cannot help but up our game, prompting the wheels to turn faster, the eyes to more carefully savor what is right before us, before it is gone. Because, like the haiku, things always seem to be over far too soon.
The Red Letters
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