Perpetuum Mobile

birds of rocks and spray
tip pebbles on sun-drenched sand
flip shells and seaweed –
on the distant horizon
summer is sparkling in salt

Kim M. Russell, 2017

Image found on rspb.org.uk

My response to Chèvrefeuille’s Gift to You to Celebrate Our First Luster of Carpe Diem Haiku Kai #4 reprise “perpetuum mobile”

In a new episode of this special Luster feature, Chèvrefeuille takes us back to several special features we have had at CDHK. This time he brings us a ‘reprise’ of ‘Perpetuum Mobile’ (perpetual movement), a special feature about ‘movement in haiku’, the ‘trigger’ to create Undou (movement) as a Haiku Writing Technique in the second CD-HWT series.

He says that haiku is the poetry of nature and nature is always in motion. Seasons come and go, the moon changes every 28 days and so on. He explains that, in haiku, movement can be ‘driving a car’ or ‘the swirling of autumn leaves’, but it can also be ‘the change of seasons’ or ‘the erosion of pebbles through water or sand’. He says that capturing movement in a haiku is not easy, because sometimes it can look artificial.

Chèvrefeuille says that a haiku must be fluid, it has to flow, and the only way to do that is being at one with the moments or impressions we are describing in haiku