IN203 Honors Seminar: Global Haiku Tradition
Dr. Randy Brooks • Spring 2006

Existential Haiku

by
Andrew Barnick

play the mp3 file (3.4 mb)

I am I: Haiku

sweet rose
or wilting dream
fear it may be neither

perception… all is what-
I think it to be
raging storm… raindrop

my thoughts
enslaved by freedom
a spider watching its web

rule-less world…
no time, no limits
sun never rises or sets…

limits restrict
dying lean of the sapling
makes it different

what I and only I am
allows me to be
a magpie… a swan

lone, brown blade of grass
Unique is to be alone
Is not to be

what I fear
is to be… but be alone
strayed sprout dies

what I fear is to be
together, but same
field, single bloom
overlooked

the daisy smells back
both now a part
of the other

its emptiness-
fills my own
is fear conquered?

does the daisy
still smell sweet
when we part?

apart… empty
am I still my self
is the dry bed still a river?

I fear existence
and nothingness
green leaf one day will fall

oak Tree falling
in the forest
does the pine hear?

heard or unheard
one truth prevails
I am I…