winter beach
wave after wave
of memory
Published by
Bob Lucky
Bob Lucky is the author of Careful Not to Startle the Yaks (Cyberwit, 2025) My Wife & Other Adventures (Red Moon Press, 2024), My Theology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019), Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), a winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize 2018, and Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014). He lives in Portugal.
View all posts by Bob Lucky
Gosh, the fact that this is a winter beach you are strolling along makes me think of the winter beaches of war, from Japanese corpses on the beach of Saipan (Mariana Islands) January 01, 1939 and in November 1943, the United States Marine Corps' capture of the tiny atoll of Tarawa in the central Pacific that cost more than 3,000 casualties. American censors banned a public screening of the US Navy film of this event, arguing that its shocking images of a lagoon red with soldiers' blood would undermine the morale of US forces and the Home Front.
Beaches are not just for Summer seasonal holidays but invasion platforms. The poignancy and irony is deeply moving.
Alan
Thanks, Alan. Your comments are much appreciated. I think you've demonstrated how reading a haiku is an integral part of the creative process. Happy New Year.
Lovely, haiku, Bob.
Thanks, Lynne. Best wishes for the new year.
Gary, I think it'd be more helpful, to the author as well as other haiku readers/writers commenting, if you could offer some critical comment and insight into why it's 'not good' for you.
Subtle and evocative. Reminds me how much I love Maine’s beaches in the cold months.
the color
of seagull wings
winter beach
Thanks, Joy. There's something about a winter beach…
Bob
Winter beach, memories, the power-words in this for me.
In 2004, my siblings and I joined for a retreat on Hunting Beach, S.C. the first week of Nov.
It was warm enough, two of those days, to wade in the sea waters. My beachcomber sister was out each day, collecting treasures. We each took a day at our turn for meal prep at the primitive cottage. The marsh side behind us, we observed shrimppers daily hoisting and lowering nets, and wildlife of snakes, and deer, and one alligator.
Such a beautiful memory that was unlocked in me in this ku, after two years of loosing that one to a brain trama.
Thank you.
Jan Benson
Winter beaches are the best. Just a few locals who love the solitude.
Lonely too, if you've lost someone, but the constant wave action seems to absorb some of that too.
Thank you for this resonant ku.
I like it. I can picture someone standing on a beach looking at the water.
For many years, we have walked the ocean beach near our home on January first, It is a ritual we both look forward to each year regardless of the wintry weather.. We do it for many reasons, not the least of which is to allow the memories to wash over us, wave after wave. This subtle poem spoke volumes to me. Thank you.
an old woman
leans into the wind
beach grass
Lovely to be companioned by another soul's journey- a solitary Maine beach walk in a snowstorm with my dog. Priceless. Without words except for now. Thank you.
What a beautiful haiku. Memories long buried but never forgotten, sometimes just come crashing in, wave after wave.
winter beach
stalking me
my footprints
Beautiful. Full of melancholy but also comfort, Bob, unlike mine…
gull crying the length of sadness
5th place, Shiki Kukai Temporary Archives November 2015
Kigo subject: bird (In memory of Gene Murtha)
windy sand
we shake out our sneakers
another step
Thank so much. Your comments are much appreciated. I think you've demonstrated how reading a haiku is an integral part of the creative process
good!