Global Haiku • Fall 2017
Dr. Randy Brooks

reader response essay:
Take a Deep Breath: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace

renku:
Celebration
by
Alex Herrera
Mackenzie Martin
Maddy Delano
Morgan Better
Megan Batty

Looking for Rapture

by
Mackenzie Martin

As this fall semester ends, I realize just how much haiku have come to mean to me. They allow me to put my emotions into words; and furthermore, they are an outlet of relaxation. I have named my collection “Looking for Rapture,” because my favorite haiku are often a culmination of an ideal place or moment in time that I wish to be in. These situations may not evoke any emotion in others, but to me, they induce such quiet joy that I am inclined to call it rapture. Some of my favorite things made their way in to my favorite haiku, such as travel, literary references, tennis, my sister, and as clearly indicated by my signature haiku, eyewear. Why these haiku are only brief snapshots of my mind, they are representative of my life and thoughts.

long tennis match
I glance over
and see my dad's grin

feet up on his dash
my eyes flutter open
to his smile

back to the future
familiar faces
in my new hometown

stolen shirts
bad music in her car
giggling with my sister

midnight . . .
rolling cookies
clever ideas unfold

breathtakingly beautiful
in every way
crooked nose

clear blue eyes
hide behind large black frames
quite the spectacle

existential crisis
as I sit on the rusty swings
squeaking back and forth

real-life African safari
the giraffe hears
the screech of the taxi

standing on her tiptoers
        can't see over
                the mountains

holding hands
our love soars
beneath the Tower

Jesus’s arms outstretched
to the beat of the drums
she hugs him