Global Haiku • Fall 2024
Dr. Randy Brooks

Cardinal's Call

by
Dan Mungons

A cardinal’s call—a disruption of winter stillness in both its sudden, piercing tone and the bright red of its source. A fitting title, I think, for my first haiku collection. Collected here are my best works from my time in Dr. Randy Brooks’ 2024 Global Haiku Traditions honors class at Millikin University. Though I am still very young as a haiku poet, I believe I have grown a lot over the past few months in this class. I have been most inspired by the poets Bashô and Masajo Suzuki—Bashô for his observational haiku expressing sabi and a complete absence of human presence, and Suzuki for her brilliant interweaving of kigo and poignant emotional experiences.

My earlier haiku tend to more directly express my personal impressions and perspective, but I have been more recently trying to move away from this and towards more observational haiku, and try to guide the reader to inhabit the moment (be it an observed event or an internal experience) in the same way I did. I do not believe I have fully achieved this, but arranged here, in order of seasonal theme, are those I believe come close.

cardinal call
a single footprint
in the snow

shining windows
underneath lies
a junco

winter break!
finally
minimum wage

pigeon standing
still
alive for now

petrichor—
streetlamp reflected
off the pavement

caught on a tissue
I send it out the door
to some I am small, too

show’s over
I drag bits of me
off the stage

laundry room
white towels and
white noise

going back . . .
the old library
has new couches

colon parentheses
less than three
I love you

outside the corner store
an unruly mob
of sparrows

motion
      1,    2
                sparrows
     a third lagging behind