Buddhism’s Pure Land sect postulates a heaven realm filled with jeweled trees, each leaf and blossom producing a different color from the jewel with which it is made. Gold and purple-gold lights fill the sky, and lotus blossoms open with flower filled palaces. Mythical realm. No haikuist could be satisfied writing poetry in such a “perfect realm.”

Note this Buddhist heaven is considered a metaphor. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and thousands of pagan belief systems have also generated heavens that might not satisfy a writer of haiku.

Haiku is the realm of mysterious simplicity. No need for a heaven realm. Eternity exists in the most ordinary. With our minds, we perform the miracle of seeing the thing-in-itself. The haikuist hears the sound of a berry dropping in the water; they have heard the greatest of truths.

The cottonmouth swims,

Then ascends the riverbank:

Moss grows on oak limbs.

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Kevin McLaughlin

Bakhtiyar Amini of Tajikistan and Germany provides three lines of deep humanity and a Zen-filled teacher who milks her cow.

early spring

an infertile woman

singing a lullaby

the interval

the village teacher goes

to milk her cow

Bakhtiyar Amini

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander whose poems have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and journals.

Lenticular Clouds

float above winter mountains.

Shadows play on snow.

(Such a beautiful description of clouds! Lenticular being biconvex.)

An austere ashram.

A stark and leaf-bare landscape,

liberating, calm.

(Stillness and calm…ah!)

Laurie Rosen

Shakti Pada Mukhopadhyay is a first-time contributor who has heard the cuckoo’s plaintive cry.

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The clouds pelted rains.

The frog croaked for the mate, but

the snake ruined his fate.

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(The true Way of all nature.)

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Summer days turn the

lands grey, but the cuckoo sings

songs for his heyday.

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Shadows of the hills

and the azure sky rippled

on the dancing lake.

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Rains pelted on the leaves,

drenching the sheaves and bathed the

Rose to bloom again.

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Shakti Pada Mukhopadhyay

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Hermann Eberl is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Mathematicians have access to a Universe few of us can enter.

Fog covered darkness

ambulance howls at midnight

coyotes respond

By the back window

a Eurasian collared dove

one time visitor

A kestrel swoops in

robs the bird house in my driveway

a faulty design

Street lights throw at night

a white blanket on the ground

coyotes play catch

Where once it had a heart

a hole is in a starling’s chest

the snow red, the hawk gone

Against summer’s sky

redwinged black birds chase a hawk

lorries race along

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(Beautiful juxtaposition and an aviary of poignant haiku.)

Hermann Eberl

Riham El-Ashry offers a melodic, enigmatic haiku. She is an Egyptian poet and an English teacher. She writes, “It is the simple yet profound aspect of haiku that attracts her to this art.”

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near the bridge

horsehair bowing strings

in moonlight tunes

Riham El-Ashry

Patricia Hawkhead, United Kingdom, weaves tranquility, clarity, and frogs.

slipping into sleep

the creaking springs

of my lovelorn frog

evening bath

plop!

a plastic frog drops in

(How Basho would have loved this poem! We all heard that frog plop.)

Patricia Hawkhead

Samo Kreutz lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His old trees are more beautiful than a tree in any of the heaven realms.

new morning

closest to the sun

me and the old trees

proud father

by a baby in a pram

glittering dawn

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(That third line is a portrait of paradise.)

Samo Kreutz

Thomas R. Thomas need only have written this one poem to have established his art.

fragile leaves

paint sidewalk

after rain

Thomas R. Thomas

Yi Jung Chen, who is a teacher at Dounan Elementary School in Taiwan, continues this theme with her vision of paradise.

a morning dewdrop

falling petals on the ponds

back into the dust

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(This is a classic haiku. Each reader needs to envision those falling petals. Juxtaposition and perfect 5-7-5 form.)

on the fluffy clouds

a bite by a crocodile

shockingly awake

Yi Jung Chen

Joan C. Fingon from Ventura, California, enjoys reading poetry to her cat in their back garden. BTS is always grateful to receive some of Joan’s work.

grazing

in the warm summer light

mother and colt

(So peaceful.)

one polar bear

lopes along the ice floe

deep footprints

Joan C. Fingon

Kate Williams lives in the peaceful countryside of Wales.

A pebble beneath

fast waters is my cloud-swept

moon: uncatchable.

Kate Williams