after the sound
of wind in the plum tree
a plum
Published by
Josh Wikoff
Josh lives with his wife and daughters in Northern California. Some of his poems have sllipped past the editors of Acorn, Asahi Haikuist Network, Chrysanthemum, The Heron's Nest, Lynx, Mariposa, Roadrunner, Shamrock Haiku Journal, and Tinywords.
View all posts by Josh Wikoff
Hi Josh,
Beautifully simple, gorgeously simple. I love it!
Can you get in contact with me?
Wishing you all the very best, and hoping to see more of your haiku on Tinywords.
Alan
yeah! i like you haiku very much, Josh!
Hi Josh,
What beautiful flowing lines . . . and at the end, the gift of a plum!
Great work!
_kala
sorry for my typo, Josh (my fingers were too quick)!
There was only one problem I found with it. How did it capture ONE moment? I think it got ruined for me because it says “after the wind”….captures a span….too long a time for a short sweet plummy haiku, don’t you think? :)
For me this has the real Isa feel.
Thank you all for your comments.
Alan, I’ll track you down.
dhavel, how long is a moment?
a whole field of
rice seedlings planted – I part
from the willow
–m. basho
I remember this, Josh. Good to read it again, and congratulations.
Lovely surprise at the end, Josh! Beautiful in its simplicity.
before the wind
in the plum tree…
plum blossoms
Lovely work, Josh!
I’m glad to see this one here…
more to come, I’m sure!
;)
Lary
Thanks for email Josh! ;-)
The “haiku moment” is actually a Western invention which Japanese haiku poets don’t use for their haiku.
If a few do now, it’s because the “haiku moment” was really big in the U.S.A. for so long.
I think “a plum” is “the moment” and there is an almost kalidoscopic timeshift back as to how that plum is there in front of Josh now.
Hmmm..
How long do you think the Western Haiku “moment” can be?
lingering snow/the game of catch continues/into evening – Cor vd Heuvel
over spatterdocks/turning at corners of air/dragonfly – N Virgilio
after-dinner mints/passed around the table/slow-falling snow – MD Welch
coming home/flower/by/flower – J Reichold
overtaken/by a single cloud/and letting it pass – M McClintock
Thanks for the classic haiku Josh, I don’t think I’ve seen one or two before, but I’m fans of every poet you’ve given.
For too long there’s been a mistaken idea that a haiku can ONLY give a fleeting moment. There is no precedent for this in Japanese haiku.
We can see from the examples Josh has given that there is also no precedent in classic Western haiku either.
after the fall–
in the midst of browning grass
peach seeds
–
moment: an indefinitely(without limits) space of time. or statistically: the arithmetic mean of the products of the powers of random variables in a probability distribution; but i think most would agree in a moment there are two points of time reference, and the key word being “probability”