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| following quiet path 2014 |
In an article at Poetry Through the Ages titled "Movement Frozen in Time" (here), a quiet picture of haiku masters is painted: "The beauty of haiku often becomes the bane of impatient writers: capturing a single moment, movement, or experience in its entirety, in three lines totaling 17 syllables or less. The masters of form spent years of traveling, wandering, observing, contemplating, and writing to refine their craft into the timeless flashes that populate haiku collections and anthologies today."
Imagine the moments of quiet they relished as they lived out their quest. Might we not benefit from some of that, too? Perhaps a slower pace, taking intentional time for reflection, or even curtailed electronic device time? Haiku--writing and/or reading--can also create these kinds of moments.
Actually, any form of poetry can help accomplish this. A few quotes to inspire us on our way:
"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance." --Carl Sandburg
"Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry." --Muriel Rukeyser
"The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies and sparkle in its brightness." --James Gates Percival
"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us." --John Ruskin
"If I feel physically as if the top of my heard were taken off, I know that is poetry." --Emily Dickinson
...and a personal favorite:
"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." --Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
And so in a moment of quietness I share day seventeen haiku:
quest for haiku path
begins long before words pass
from pen to paper
--Kenda Turner
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This makes me think of just how much the world needs poetry today. Anything to slow us down is a good thing. I get tired of the race.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Sharon...we do live too hectic a life. We are also locked in our own thoughts too much and forget to appreciate the restorative things around us. So here's to poetry, may it flourish!
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