Best of Volume 8

Winner, Haiku Moment Award
 
the moment the doe’s gaze meets mine komorebi
                         Polona Oblak, Slovenia
 
Kristen: Learning what komorebi means (Japanese for “sunlight filtering through leaves”) brought this poignant haiku to a whole new level for me. The stated “moment” is lovely in itself, but the conflation, created by the single line, of their shared gaze with the play of light in the forest adds a beautiful and unexpected depth that really makes this poem three-dimensional and almost magical.
 
Astrid: This is a true haiku moment, the term coined by Bruce Ross, an "epiphany." The epiphany of the aliveness, which is of course the same in the doe and the author, the shared moment, the almost mystical "union" in the gaze, that is then highlighted by the komorebi. A very fitting winner for this volume.
 
 
Runners-up (in alphabetical order)
 
an absence of home
the river winding
back into itself
        Joanna Ashwell, UK
 
Kristen: This haiku plays with the paradox of absence as presence (as river) in a way that really makes the reader stop and think about the meaning of “home” and “source.” I had a sense of viewing this at a distance, as on a map on which one can no longer orient themself.
 
Astrid: I thought of "rivers" of refugees, always moving towards a better place, leaving their homes behind and maybe never finding a home where they are going. The safer "holding" of winding back into oneself.
 
 
carried away on the ebb tide a swirl of ash
     Sally Biggar, USA
 
Kristen: I love how understated this haiku is. Someone’s ashes have been tossed into the waves; what’s left of someone loved is merging with the vast energy of the ocean, on a moon-powered tide: a delicate, specific, visual moment that becomes vast and almost cosmic the longer the reader sits with it.
 
Astrid: The ashes (impermanence) and the ebb tide (cycles of nature, of life) make a wonderful juxtaposition. (The author did later share with me these were her mother's ashes, returned to the ocean near a place that she loved).
 
 
white breath
the blackbird’s song
takes shape
      Lev Hart, Canada
 
Kristen: There is something wonderful when breath is made visible by cold, and even more wonderful when that breath is birdsong, taking shape literally and figuratively in a natural synesthesia of sight and sound.
 
Astrid: The breath as a sign and sine qua non of life, made visible in this tiny creature, so alive despite the cold. The author has a gift of keen observation evidenced here.
 
canopy of stars
the magnitude
of not knowing
       Kevin Valentine, USA
 
Kristen: I love how this haiku plays with the language of astronomy, in which “magnitude” refers to the brightness of heavenly bodies like stars, to convey the vast mystery of existence—an unknowingness that, despite all our measurements and probes, is really our only valid response to the night sky.
 
Astrid: The contrast between the infinite vastness of the universe and the infinitesimally tiny humanity  is well expressed in this haiku.
 
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order)
 
waiting for rain . . .
the mockingbird’s song
awash with sunset
       Marilyn Ashbaugh, USA
 
twilight murmuration
rearranging
our bucket list
      C. Jean Downer, Canada

mountain lake
the glacial stillness
in a heron’s eye
      John Hawkhead, UK

snowing again
the stray cat asleep
in the greenhouse
       chad henry, USA
 
mountain temple
the untended grave
strewn with chestnuts
     Keiko Izawa, Japan
 
frost-rimed leaves
the blue rake leans
into its shadow
     Kathryn Liebowitz, USA
 
 barren maple
the deer’s carcass
returned to earth
     Rowan Beckett Minor, USA

rotting deeper
into a darkening sky
the rowan’s berries
     Thomas Powell, UK

altocumulus moon
my first words
in coyote
     Joshua St. Claire, USA

bedroom skylight
what the moon knows
of loneliness
     Thomas Smith, USA
 
 clouds changing shape empty chrysalis
     Kevin Valentine, USA