Almost Harvest

no dawn chorus
rising later every day
sunflowers

ripe wheat
unmoving in the field
a splash of poppies

brittle with heat
leaves already yellow
awaiting release

scarecrow silhouette
leaning west towards the sun
redundancy

silent blackbirds
in their annual moult
counting feathers

Kim M. Russell, 30th July 2020

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar: Haiku Sequence, also linked to earthweal’s open link weekend

Frank T. is our host for today’s Meeting the Bar, where we take a deep dive into poetic craft. He says that many of us have written haibun for Haibun Monday prompts, which also means that we have written haiku. He would like us to try writing multiple haiku that express a similar theme or montage of images in haiku sequences. He has shared an explanation of the form and a four-haiku sequence by Michael Dylan Welch, together with a longer sequence by Adelaide B. Shaw, as examples.

Each sequence features a title, which can refer to the unifying idea or framework in which the haiku appear. Haiku sequences can be as short as a pair, or as long as the poet chooses. In both example sequences, the poets juxtapose two images within each haiku; the images relate to the theme or unifying framework of the sequence, as do the haiku themselves.

Our challenge is to write haiku sequences on any theme we like, with a minimum of three haiku with the traditional 5-7-5 syllable count, or haiku that can be read aloud in a breath, using a short-long-short format, without a syllable count. We must give the sequences titles and be sure they link to the haiku,

Instead of an image I chose one of my favourite Neil Young songs from ‘Harvest’.

 

55 thoughts on “Almost Harvest”

  1. I saw sunflowers yesterday and they are lovely, along with poppies. You captured that late summer scene with the ripe wheat and yellowed leaves. Autumn is coming up with harvest.

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  10. Damn, on the cusp of August, with Autumn in sight, yet, yet, the pandemic, the election, my sanity, all to be resolved…but you rocked the prompt with your sunshine splashed words, and fetching images.

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  17. It feels like we had an early summer, and now we’re drifting into an early autumn – though in Ireland autumn starts on 1 August, so maybe I just misremember. I love the combination of melancholy and fruitfulness you capture here, Kim.

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  20. I was always surprised to visit my father in Pennsylvania up from Florida this time of year to see the summer already turning towards fall–that won’t happen here til October–a Lammas or Lugnasadh moment here, the harvest readying, the song lifting towards fall. Yes. – Brendan

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