PACE Global Haiku • January 2008 Dr. Randy Brooks

Christina Reed Kasen Renga: Traveling Feathers

Selected Haiku by Christina Reed Each haiku in this collection has been selected from haiku attempts made throughout the course of my Millikin class with Dr. Brooks. I prefer to call them “attempts” because I simply don’t yet have the confidence in my editing skills to consider them respectable haiku. I leave it open to the reader to interpret many of my haiku in different ways. Each has a significant connection to some point in my own life, whether that reason is evident to the reader or not. My theory on choosing haiku for this collection was to include the most significant to myself as well as the haiku approved by my classmates and teacher. I post this haiku collection in hopes that it may have a meaningful connection to other individuals, as it has to me. Each haiku attempt is focused on a single moment… most of which are quite emotional. However, I prefer to limit my use of emotional descriptions so that the reader has the enjoyment of “feeling it out” on his/her own. Though the reader may not have been with me during the haiku moments, he/she may join in the experience through my haiku attempts at sharing them. The reader should reflect on his/her own past while pondering the haiku moments found in this booklet. ~Christina Reed Decatur, Illinois

a sea of eyes I meet their stare cold tiles underfoot

from the darkness… a tiny winged visitor

it dripped on my cheek— a “cave kiss”

through the window my snowman smiles back at me

tiny tracks in the snow— an early morning song

bitter wind… fumbling for candles in the silent darkness

winter night… toes under fur

same old cave… new discoveries each year

© 2008, Randy Brooks • Millikin University
All rights returned to authors upon publication.