Those Moments—Haiku on Becoming A Family
As children, we grow up thinking about family as mom and dad, brothers and sisters, and the occasional extended family member. These people are the people we love, but why? We love them because they are all we know, they are the people that chose us, created us, raised us, and stood by us no matter what. I find it interesting though that as an emerging adult I am faced with the idea of doing the opposite of my current role in my family. All of a sudden it becomes your choice to find a spouse, to create a being that knows you as family, and to build the same thing your parents once built for you. It is the craziest thought to contemplate and I'm only abstractly thinking about it at this point in my life but that is why I think I love pregnancy, birth, and new babies so much. I think this is why I find birth so beautiful and precious—it is because it's not just "having a baby"—it's actually bringing in a whole new family member. It is life altering, much more than I think a lot of parents realize at first, but birth is where that starts. Birth is a pivotal point in not only the baby's life, but also for the fortunate parents.
In that frame of mind, I wanted to look at haiku that were about these moments (in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum life) that resonate with our souls. I feel that huge moments in our life are remembered in little blips and details that combine to make a logical story and haiku takes these minute moments and makes them beautiful all on their own. They can stand-alone and be just as powerful, if not more, than any picture or episode of "A Baby Story" on TLC. When reading through some of my reference material and trying to find haiku that captured these minute moments I was blown away by the sheer amount that did exactly that. It's like for some reason, writers were able to capture these moments with intensely emotional imagery and beautiful resonance quite easily and that gave me many options to choose from. So I thought that I would just start with pregnancy and follow the natural sequence of having a baby through haiku and with some of the best authors around (cough cough), my parents, Randy & Shirley Brooks.
To start off I was looking through the book School's Out by Randy Brooks published by Press Here in 1999. I found one of my the haiku that captured the moment when a couple is realizing they might actually be pregnant and then what to do with that information. Their family might actually be starting; it is just impossible to tell. It is in this time of the pregnancy that things just feel so overwhelmingly exciting, and this haiku is a great example of one of these moments.
Sunday after lunch
the secret of her pregnancy
on each sister's face
Randy Brooks, SO, 38
I really enjoyed this haiku because of its unobvious subject and they way it paints this picture of the family's reactions and secrets. I pictured mom sitting at one of those mid-summer picnics we used to have in the middle of a park in Indiana. There is a lot of family there but she is only a little way along in the pregnancy so she has decided not to tell everyone yet BUT her sisters, Marj and Jenny, of course know because of mom's long talks with them on the phone. So I picture mom refusing to have a cold beer because she didn't want to "upset" her stomach and therefore no one questions it but her sisters know the real reason. It's just a pleasant moment of "who knows what" here.
I also enjoy how it is written because it slowly lads you on. It starts out just setting the scene and then slowly takes you to the faces of her sisters. That last image is so specific and small and that intimacy is what makes it really successful to me. This is what I was talking about earlier. It is that intimacy and small specific moment that makes a haiku for me or an idea in a haiku like the sister's faces in this one.
As most people know, one of the most prominent symptoms of pregnancy for the mother is the huge change in her breasts. My parents wrote a book about my brother when he was born (he was their first child) called The Rosebud Bursts published and written by Randy & Shirley Brooks and this haiku was in the first section.
all my tops
tight with
these mother breasts
Shirley Brooks, TRB
I really enjoyed this one because it embodied that feeling of not being in control of your own body anymore. When someone is pregnant, vast changes are happening without them being able to do anything about it, and I like that this haiku puts that into images. She is starting to physically feel for the first time that something is different here. It's the first actually noticeable thing and I picture that in that moment she is really starting to realize it and understand that there is actually a being growing inside her. I can relate this a little bit to when I gained quite a bit of weight. It is very different, obviously, than being pregnant, but seeing your body change so much when it's out of control and it really made me realize something was wrong, just like she realized she was pregnant. The clothes become almost a communicator to the subconscious brain by being tighter and tighter.
This haiku is successful because it has some interesting phrasing. The phrase "mother breasts" is one that I wouldn't have thought of to use and it really works well here. It completes the image almost in a new light. The sequencing also makes the reader feel very related to the idea of pulling on a shirt that doesn't fit. I think we can all relate to that in some way or another from growing up and growing out of your clothes as a child. It brings you to that super specific feeling of trying to stretch a shirt over your growing stomach or to the feeling of being "caught" in a shirt, unable to get out without assistance. I also thought it paired very well with a haiku published in another book by Randy Brooks called Me Too! It is a book about their next child and I liked one of their haiku paired with the one above by his wife Shirley.
my palm
on her pregnant belly,
tight as a drum
Randy Brooks, MT, 5
I see this as the perfect comparison because one is from the father and one from the mother. I like how it shows that for a woman, the pregnancy starts out being very physically altering and impactful and for the man there is this disconnect, it can be even harder for them to feel like its real (not to say that they don't care by any means). But I loved the intimacy in his compared to hers. Shirley's is sweet and almost comical in a way and Randy's is more like longing for his own body to be feeling the things that she gets to feel with their baby. I do really like the imagery used in Randy's haiku though, that last line really gives it the intensity it needs. This seems to be a great method he uses in his haiku to have a beautiful moment of revelation. That last line, "tight as a drum" makes the whole scene so sensory and descriptive. It draws you in and takes you right to her tight stomach as if your own hand was touching it.
Obviously, the first stage of actually giving birth is labor. There were three haiku that really stuck out to me in a couple of Randy's books that just provide the perfect image of labor and birth, the good, the bad, and the strange parts all together in these little moments. The first one was from his book The Rosebud Bursts that I mentioned earlier.
labor
moves through her body.
muscles she never knew
Randy Brooks, TRB
I really enjoy this one because of its "revelation" that I think a lot of women experience during birth. And I like how the writer here makes the labor something more, it is actually moving through the body and enacting these new muscles that have been waiting all their life to be engaged. It makes me think of like running long distance in high school and discovering things you never thought you would be able to do. I find this to be one of THE most amazing parts of labor and the fact that the male in this situation was able to grasp that and understand it was so encouraging and inspiring to me as a doula. The choice of words in this haiku was perfect because of his one verb and the idea of muscles that she never knew. It puts you right into her perspective and makes you see things through her eyes somehow (which is impressive since Randy wrote it and not Shirley). Once again, Randy has used his successful tactic of ending with a very thought provoking last line that pulls you in closer and pushes your mind deeper.
Speaking of going deeper, these haiku are finally moving towards a pretty big pivotal moment in the process, the crowning! This next haiku is actually from Me too! the book I discussed earlier that had the "drum belly" haiku.
 whale's eye open—
black hair
of the almost born
Randy Brooks, MT, 10
This might be one of my favorite haiku of the bunch because of its powerful imagery. Here I pictured the baby crowning and creating this space that seems so foreign and yet it is the most natural thing in the world. I feel like this is especially true for a lot of body processes women have to go through. Even a period, for example, is a pretty life altering (foreign) process that is all of a sudden un-willingly happening to a girl's body. Birth is even more extreme and I like how the image of the whale's eye makes you understand what is happening but in a slightly less graphic way. This haiku would have been bland and not nearly as descriptive/thought provoking without it. In this case Randy actually used that first line instead of the last one to blow all of the reader's minds! That whale's eye image is just beautiful, relating something non-human to a part of the human just has a beautiful effect and it is the perfect way to capture this moment's image in reality and conceptually. The ambiguity of this piece is what makes it successful in my opinion and it pairs very nicely with the blunt-ness of the next haiku. I think these two are great comparisons in the way that the subject is presented.
her belly
back to her.
with a lump of stretch left
Randy Brooks, TRB
This haiku is actually very blunt and kind of out there for everyone to see, much like I'm sure the skin was, and yet it holds this compassion and lack of embarrassment. There were many ways the author could have phrased this idea and this works really well in my opinion because it first gives you the image of her belly coming back to her and the reuniting of what she knows again from her body. I think this is something many women experience after giving birth. It is like FINALLY after all these months they are back to just being them, plain and simple. Of course that's not to say they didn't enjoy sharing their space with their dear child, but I can see it as a huge relief to feel your belly come back to you. I also think it is a part of the process that many people don't think about because they are too focused on the brand new baby (understandably). So that part of the haiku alone is really strong and thought provoking and then we add in the last sentence that is a bit shocking and really realistic and it just makes the whole scene and moment feel even more real, like it felt that day. These are the moments I have been trying to allude to in each discussion of each new haiku.
Like in this next one from Ruth Yarrow's book called A Journal For Reflections published in 1988 by The Crossing Press, there was one haiku that really stuck out to me in relation to breastfeed, the next phase of having a baby.
warm rain before dawn
my milk flows into her
unseen
Yarrow, JFR
There was something I found very interesting about this poem, and that was that I actually really liked the first line. Most of the time I find myself kind of rejecting lines that are just setting the season or ones that are kind of broad and about the weather, but here I really enjoyed it. This "setting" line gave me a feeling. It made me picture coming in from the rain and feeling more refreshed than I did before because it's dead summer outside and even before dawn it's too hot. The idea of the rain being warm and comforting almost goes right along with the point of the haiku, breastfeeding. It was a really nice comparison that an adult reader can hear and feel something similar to what the baby is feeling here, comfort of warmth. I also really like the wording she uses here, "my milk flows into her unseen". It just makes that connect between mother and child even more visceral and strong because they are literally connected by her stream of milk here. I picture a young mom with her hair thrown up in a messy bun and big baggy sweatpants on, sitting in front of a window, watching the rain and feeding her child. There is no need for any other form of entertainment for her. She is completely content and happy in her little moment there, connected to her baby. I think these are some of the moments when parents are probably contemplating the fact that they are not alone anymore. There is now officially another member in their family who is a real little tiny person. These are the moments and the thoughts we never want to forget and therefore document in beautiful haiku like this one.
Last but definitely not least we have the last "phase" of welcoming a baby into a new home, it is a phase of normality. I found this haiku in The Rosebud Bursts book again and it was such a refreshing picture of the relief that parents experience when they do kind of feel alone again for a few moments.
the baby
asleep at last—
on tiptoe, my bones pop
Randy Brooks, TRB
I loved this image and the sounds that seemed so clear, like I was hearing them while I read. I pictured that very scary moment where you ALMOST have the baby asleep for the first time in a long time and it is so nerve racking trying to walk away from the crib. All of a sudden you are hyper-aware of every little floorboard and bone pop that your feet make. Every sound seems to reverberate off of the walls and it all seems ten times louder than it really is. Sounds that we usually don't even notice become the loudest things you've ever heard. I think this is a really cool phenomenon of awareness and I love how it was used here in relation to the new baby. This haiku, it itself holds a clear preciousness of not only the footsteps but of how quickly a moment can fade and turn into something else because of one little creak in the floor.
It is in these moments that we live our entire lives; we just don't always see them as something precious and something to hold onto in our minds, let alone as a haiku. There are these moments, sometimes they are strange and sometimes they are beautiful and sometimes they are ugly but they are all so nice to be enjoyed in the simplicity of a haiku. It is so nice to get flourishing words out of the way and to just see this moment bright and clear through the lens of another human being. I think that is why I love haiku so much. It is a way for people to connect and to remember all these human experiences that shape us. These snapshots and glimpses of life fade very quickly in the mind, but a haiku can preserve them and document them in a way that really makes you remember that moment. It brings all of those moments back through your senses. Someone can actually remember exactly what it felt like to breastfeed their child for the first time or how tight her stomach truly was around their first-born. I have a terrible memory for only being a 20 year old and I want to use haiku to bring me back to those moments and completely immerse me in them but with simplicity. I don't need the haiku to tell me exactly what happened every second, I just need to jog my memory and help me to go back to that place. Haiku is my time travel, through my own life and through other haiku writers all over the nation, or even the world.
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Works Cited
Brooks, Randy. Me Too! High/Coo Press. 1985. Print.
Brooks, Randy. School's Out. Foster City, California: Press Here, 1999. Print.
Brooks, Randy. The Rusebud Bursts. Randy & Shirley Brooks, 1979. Print.
Yarrow, Ruth. A Journal For Reflections. Crossing, 1988. Print.
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