To Contend: Selected Haiku

by
Heather Aymer

To speak simply and not begin into grandiose speculation was the most difficult task presented to me in writing haiku.

To find beautiful the world and things as they are in their moments was a lesson, a grasping of the world necessary to personal growth.

Aside from certain contrary values, I try to be the most Zen oriented I can. I do not think, but only remember a moment that is punching at me to reveal and birth. The slime of the dog’s saliva in grounding the frisbee in the rengay ““inbetween,” for instance.

I do not hold entirely to moments of personal interaction, I do contend.

The haiku where I speak of my grandmother walking down a country road, that event happened out of my experience, but knowing the road, my grandmother, and the relief and uncertainty of finding her there unable to remember why she was, I do know. That feeling needed expression as definitively as remembering my dog, Niko. Yes, that is not considered so genuine a haiku for it is not centered immediately in the author’s empirical domain, but we all, writers, do fly from our conventions for those “have to” expressions, such as some of the following.

     inbetween

a dragon’s head
peeking from the boughs
of the fur tree

     seedless pine cones
     dripping

web-footed
ducks jumping on my feet
for bread

     air pockets
     in the kneaded dough

thunder clouds
a lightening bolt
to the ground

     grounded frisbee
     in the dog’s mouth

     Brittle Flowers

grass crunching
underfoot, me and only
the birds weep

     a dry blue sky
     without pity

no tears
for the deceased boy
meeting his grandmother

     nearby dusty creek bed
     tiny bones

apertures
of a petrified stump
cut into my boot

     brittle flowers
     mark a page . . .
     the old book

Heather Aymer & Bob Reed

summer heat
thirty-five ages and names
the obituaries

cola
in a clear purple glass
ruby

squishing a spider
in the hogan
summer camp

summer
grandma walks mindless
down the country road

wafting smell, powder
lingering still in the hall
absent grandparents