Nature and Garden Haiku – Short and Sweet Poems to Brighten Your Day 

Summers are amazing in Corvallis, sunshine, blue skies, warm days, and cool nights. Gardens are flourishing and we celebrate the outdoors, but with COVID worries, social distancing, mask wearing, and having to limit visits with family and friends, you and your family might be going a little stir crazy, just like me! But one morning, watching with awe as a hummingbird darted in and out of my sprinkler,the word “haiku” popped into my head as a way to capture this magical and fleeting moment. A haiku (high-coo) is a specific type of Japanese poem that traditionally contains 17 syllables,written in 3 lines following a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable pattern, often with nature or seasonal themes.

"Beautiful jewel (5), Delicate water dancer (7) Hummingbird morning gift (5)"

One of most famous Japanese haiku poets, Basho, popularized this form of poetry in the 17th Century. In the 1940’s – 1950’s, haiku flourished in the U.S. with the “Beat Poets”including Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Snyder. The haiku poetry form is very accessible to students: you focus on descriptive and sensory words, verbs,adjectives, nouns, and there’s no rhyming pattern or punctuation. Drop the “is”,“and”, “the”, and hone in on the essence of what you are seeing in the moment.Write haikus as a family to remember highlights from a hike, camping trip, or what you observe in your garden and yard. Add a drawing, a photo, give them as gifts,collaborate, challenge yourself to write a haiku a week, hang them in a tree, post them online! Keep it light-hearted and don’t get hung up on the details. Celebrate summer with haiku happiness all you Corvallis poets! FMI check out this link:  https://iaforhaikuaward.org/what-is-a-haiku/. My friends jumped into the haiku challenge and came up with these poetic gems:

"Two crows are cawing, Nature in a parking lot, Urban wilderness"

"Sweet Hummingbird flies high, Seemingly effortless yet, Nature knows better"

"Three lovely 'matoes, What a precious use of time, This is gardening"