Best of Volume 9 Awards

​Winner (Haiku Moment Award)
 
rising moon
we place the salmon's bones
back in the river
           Xenia Tran, Scotland, UK
 
Kristen: There’s something so lovely and reverent about this haiku. I’m imagining an al fresco meal on a summer evening of salmon caught on the spot, perhaps on a camping trip with friends, and enjoyed in that way only a meal in the wilderness can be, especially after what may have been a long day of hiking and fishing together. These eleven words convey the full narrative of a shared outdoor experience: fishing, a convivial riverside meal, the beauty of moonrise. And at the end of the meal, the bones aren’t just tossed away; they are returned with care back to the waters from which they came, a gesture of gratitude and grace that makes for a deeply resonant haiku moment.
 
Astrid: A striking image of an almost ceremonial "burial" of the remains of the author's meal viewed as a gift from nature and returned to it.
 
 
Runners-up, in alphabetical order
 
winter hour
the long breath
of darkness
      Joanna Ashwell, UK
 
Kristen: A quiet haiku that embodies the essence of a winter night. Even as it mirrors a deep sigh, the “breath” of this dark moment contains hope—we know this time will pass and morning—and ultimately, spring—will arrive. A small measure of comfort can be found in its animism: even in the chill of a long winter’s night, we are somehow not alone.
 
Astrid: Winter makes everything in nature slow down, hibernate: a long breath in the expectation of the light of spring.
 
light snow
the breath of a bison
over its calf
      Pat Davis, USA
 
Kristen: Light snow and the light breath of a bison cow fall on the calf, which is both exposed to and protected from the elements in a very tangible way. We feel both the chill of the snow, which is fortunately “light” and probably no danger to the calf, and the warm breath of the calf’s formidable mother in this touching winter moment.
 
Astrid: A tender image of motherhood in a nearly previously extinct species, linked to hope in the new calf.
 
 
wellness check
the elderberries
a darker shade of red
      Julie Schwerin, USA
 
Kristen: As time passes, ripening becomes aging, as this evocative juxtaposition emphasizes. The berries are elderberries, implying that the “wellness check” is on an older person, probably living alone. Ripe berries are enjoyed in their prime, but “a darker shade” hints anxiously at potential spoilage and decay—as well as the issues of aging, loneliness, and all that might necessitate a wellness check. A powerful haiku.
 
Astrid: The author deftly expresses the changing seasons of life in her body as well as in nature.
 
 
deep in the hush
of winter . . .
heart of a wood frog
       Paula Sears, USA
 
Kristen: This haiku presents with poetic clarity an everyday miracle: wood frog blood contains a natural anti-freeze, so when a frog freezes solid during its winter hibernation in the mud and its tiny heart stops beating, it yet lives. This haiku makes us take a hushed breath as we think of this frog—in the heart of winter, as it were—for all practical purposes dead under the snow and ice, waiting to thaw and revive come spring.
 
Astrid: The miracle of this wood frog heart is viewed with compassion and keen observation.
 
 
fading light
a moth’s wing rests
on the prayer stone
       Nalini Shetty, India
 
Kristen: A beautiful, quiet image. A paused moth, or perhaps—even more movingly—just its disembodied wing, touches the prayer stone, and with that soft gesture, gives this simple moment a spiritual depth.
 
Astrid: In the fading light of the day, or of life, it is as if this moth has "offered" itself in death to a nature deity.
 
 
wandering dunes
bones of a whale
haunted by wind
       Susan Yavaniski, USA
 
Kristen: Amid the dunes—a significant part of the beach landscape—and the bones of one of the planet’s largest animals, wind is the prime mover. Wind moves the sand grain by grain, shifting the bodies of the dunes themselves over time. And wind haunts the whale’s skeleton, somehow embodying the ghost of the whale with its eerie sound and invisible touch. An unsettling, evocative haiku.
 
Astrid: A striking image and synesthesia of sound in the remains of an awe-inspiring creature in an almost mythical landscape.
 
 
Honorable Mentions, in alphabetical order
 
neighborhood walk
apple trees
break out in song
      Marilyn Ashbaugh, USA
 
ylang ylang blossoms
a child carries
a child
     Alvin B. Cruz, The Philippines
 
Settlers Bay Cemetery
the shell 
that held me
      Jenny Fraser, New Zealand
 
owl calls
hanging in the grey hour
of a fading dream
     John Hawkhead, UK
 
fig compote
left to cool in the pan 
evening stars
     Keiko Izawa, Japan
 
afternoon sun –
a loon disappears
in the glisten    
     Laurie D. Morrissey, USA
 
taliban winter
muffled sound of water
under the ice
     Vandana Parashar, India
 
calling the river
by an ancient name 
roar of the falls
     Susan Yavaniski, USA