Hawk

the hawk’s glissando
silenced by fresh snow at dusk
run home little mouse

Kim M. Russell, 29^th January 2019

My response to Carpe Diem #1595 hawk (taka)

In the penultimate episode of January 2019, in which we’ve been exploring kigo (season words) for winter, we have a classical kigo to work with, which has been taken from the section winter, subsection animals of the Shiki, classical saijiki: hawk (taka).

Chèvrefeuille tells us that the hawk symbolizes the ability to use intuition and higher vision in order to complete tasks or make important decisions, and that hawks represent the messengers of the spirit world. He has given us examples of haiku with this kigo:

toward those short trees
we saw a hawk descending
on a day in spring

© Masaoka Shiki

 by a singular stroke
of luck, I saw a solitary hawk circling
above the promontory of Irago

© Matsuo Basho