Paul Scherschel • Bruce Ross The Tao of Haiku

Windy Spring Day Favorite Haiku by Paul Scherschel In order to read a haiku, the reader needs to embrace the haiku and the event being expressed. So, reader, I hope you are ready to sit back and enjoy these haiku. Some haiku are meant to be funny, while others may simply connect people with nature. Haiku can be an opportunity to feel a connection with one's self, other people, and the world around us. Life can be funny, sad, or may simply just be. Haiku can capture each of these moments. The haiku in this booklet include all of those elements. I enjoy trying to grasp the essence of a moment, but want you, the reader, to make it your own. Haiku is a "wordless" poem that has allowed me to express myself, while hopefully allowing the readers to fill in the lines. Also, the element of nature is a means to go beyond the words of a haiku to use more of our senses. The haiku contained within this booklet are my favorites. Haiku are short, so readers should read the entire haiku. There is no need to skim through a haiku, so sit back, relax, and focus your mind. Read the entire haiku, and then paint a picture.

Reader's Introduction Paul's haiku is trying persistently and patiently, like a gentle and steady breeze, to take us back to the moment just before our excitement is revealed and the surprise is no longer a surprise. After reading "unopened newspaper" and watching the "uneaten lasagna" go cold on the stove, Paul's readers are consumed with feelings of foreplay. In these poems, Paul forces the reader to appreciate the silence just before the music begins and the climactic rush that leads to sudden silence after the performance. Paul often leaves his reader just where they should be-in longing. Yet, Paul gives the reader satisfaction eventually. In "endless sky" the foreplay is finally ended for the reader or, rather, he allows for a temporary anecdote to the foreplay to keep the reader reading only to set up more foreplay later. For me, "endless sky" and "summer drive" are the perfect channels for this action. I am left wanting to turn my ball cap backwards and "toss the football" with Paul. The car doesn't even matter. Nevertheless, I still want that moment just before I catch the scent of the flower . . . when I do or do not know that the scent will finally arrive at my nose. I must end this paragraph of the introduction, fittingly, with a question. How lovely is that moment? Paul's comedic repertoire is on display as he pokes fun at "the professor." He also gives readers a fairly universal picture of life through these subjective moments with the wide variety of feelings the reader feels in his haiku. Paul's readers complete a journey through awkward moments in poems like "she has to pay" and they also traverse hardships in poems like "moonlight" Paul has caught hold of the ungrasp-able art form of haiku by allowing the words to flow from his pen when they are ready to come. Thus, there is just enough detail compacted in his poetry for a hazy picture. He has reminded us of a moment we want to grasp hold of but just cannot. Thus, Paul has left at least this reader longing and wanting for something beautiful. Paul has left this reader thinking of the last words of Keat's poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn:" "Beauty is truth and truth is beauty. That is all ye need to know on Earth, and that is all ye need to know." —Joe Kramp