Featuring these wonderful haiku written for the #HaikuSeed burning
burning memories
– sake, rice, companions
flying to the moon
crisp fall air
piles of leaves
colors burning
– Linda, @LinderLeeL
A Few Thoughts on the Haiku
It amazes me time and again how reading the same haiku multiple times, over a period of time, seems to bring out different images and interpretations from it.
I had selected this haiku because I liked the image of someone sitting and drinking saké as they burn scribbled notes in a fire (made popular by movies, but whether burning written notes is part of any culture, I do not know). Who knows what memories they are trying to get rid of? And every now and then charred remnants of the notes are spit out, the person’s only companions for the night, now rising up, flying to the moon, making them lonely again.
As I began writing this commentary though, the haiku took a different shape in my head and I wasn’t even looking for it. What if the burning memories are not written notes, but they are just memories that are painfully burning within the person’s heart. Drinking sake and eating rice, this person recalls the companions in his life, ones he has been close to, ones he has loved and received love from, who are no longer there. This is could be what companions
flying to the moon could mean.
Let’s take a little detour before I talk about this delightful haiku.
In south India, there is no autumn as such in terms of the classic color spectrum that is linked to autumn. So for me, the idea of autumn is only conceptual. But I love the season. Countless photos of places all over the world have shaped my own understanding of nature and it has influenced my writing obviously. I’ve taken inspiration from and referenced autumn countless times in my creative writing endeavors (of questionable quality).
So, back to the haiku. The image this one created is every bit as beautiful and magnificent as the photos I’ve seen of autumns over rolling landscapes, trees in colors from green to yellow to orange to red – colors burning, as the writer says. The piles of leaves created a overwhelming saturation for the colors my head was imagining. After reading the haiku for a couple of times, the autumn colors got stronger in my mind and I think I could link that to the second line in the verse.
— Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta
Founding Editor
@coffeeandhaiku
Click the button to read more brilliant haiku by writers on Twitter for this #HaikuSeed.
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