thick clouds--
a gap takes me
to the ocean
Modern Haiku, Issue 46:2, 2015 (Ed. Paul Miller)
Poems come to my mind as a fragrance to a flower… A flow of poetic thought sparks when I capture some image while walking, travelling, or sitting calmly on the balcony. Generally, I write it down in my notebook or on a piece of paper. I still remember a couple of occasions when I jotted down haiku even on the boarding pass, paper napkin, and my palm while traveling! I wrote the above haiku while on a domestic flight. “Haiku is the art of the instantaneous,” said Stuart Quine to Tim Gardiner. The sun was shining brightly over the hills of thick cloud, the edges gleaming with prominence. I could stare through the gaps of the clouds at the blue colour of the Bay of Bengal, the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, from the flight. I had a feeling of amazement and tranquility. Instantly, I transformed the moment into a poetic flow.
It is primarily a haiku with contours of visual imagery. I could feel the exquisite beauty of nature revealing the vastness of the ocean through the gaps in the clouds. The elliptical opening in high to mid-level clouds is known as fallstreak hole or “hole punch cloud”. The poem bridges the pathway between the sky and the sea at the level of the landscape of conscious imagination. The “gap” is a doorway of human experience, architecting one's thought across space and time.
Randy Brooks says, “The writer starts something that the readers finish. What a great haiku does for readers is it invites them into a collaboration of creative playfulness…” I wish to briefly cite the reviewers' comments about the above haiku featured in Nicholas Klacsanzky's Haiku Commentary Blog, May 2028.” It is fascinating to consider how readers interpret the poem in their unique styles.
Lucia Fontana, an Italian poet, author, and founding editor of Incense Dreams, elucidates the Zen feeling embedded in the haiku as she pens: “Since the first reading of this ku, I’ve felt it carries an extraordinary sense of liberation. I can read it again and again and feel each time the movement, as if I’m being pulled by an invisible wind, not mentioned, but there for sure, to the blue of the ocean, breaking through the blue gap of the sky…!
It seems it creates in the mind of the reader a virtual flight, surfing on air currents and seeking the sun. Also, at a deeper level of reading it, the kireji lets us imagine and clearly perceive the recovery of the soul of the author, as if he could have turned his wounds into blessings….
The first line contains bitter sounds — ck, cl, ds — which suggest an imminent storm, or a difficult life-moment. But soon, in the second line, the rhythm of consonants separated by the sounds of long-short-long vowels empowers the dynamic in the ku and brings the openness of the long and open vowels in the last line, of the word ocean, as a natural mantra for all.
This ku has a strong Zen feeling, showing a meditative journey from full to empty (thick clouds/gap) and it is a reminder to us to not be afraid of emptiness since we ourselves are nothing else but little fluctuations of matter around this vacuum.”
Hifsa Ashraf, poet and editor from Pakistan, discovers the meditative element in the poem: “This is really simple to interpret, as it is all about the thought process. Thick clouds may indicate a lack of awareness or oblivion or unconsciousness. A gap is a sort of reflection of those thoughts that go through the filtration process. Awareness of our own thoughts (mindfulness), in other words, crystallized thoughts. I see the meditative element here as well where the person is having some deep experiences that facilitate him to think deeply and have concrete thinking….”
Poet, Laughing Waters from Italy rejuvenates rewinds her feelings with inspiration: I’m living next to the ocean, so I can really relate to this haiku. In this haiku, line one sets the entire mood. Thick clouds so often can be seen on the horizon. They are also very symbolic. It seems that even the weather feels the mood of the poet. Something is about to come—good or bad, we don’t know. The future is hidden from us.
Next we move to line two. It is very clever. It brings hope for the better. Its not just clouds, but we see an opening, and line three gives us more. Now we know we are on the beach and we see an ocean. Overall, I really enjoyed this haiku. Its inspiring. Here’s a tanka written in inspiration:
a dark horizon—
heavy clouds
chasing each other
we fall in warm sand
and laugh
My humble summarization: It has been a delightful poetic spark from high above the sky, illuminating the beauty of nature in its splendid manifestation, embedding the spirit of science and spirituality.