Over the last eight years, we’ve constantly been searching to cope with a world turned upside down. Mark and I have tried a variety of self-care methods – long showers, walks through the neighborhood, spending time in a coffee shop.
But last year we discovered a new method. The daily haiku. The New York Times had an article about expressing yourself this way, and we thought “what the heck?”
So we started sending each other a short poem each morning, encapsulating our hopes, fears, dreams and delights in seventeen syllables a day.
We’ve since shared the practice with a few friends.
So here are just a few I’ve written since January 2023:
Asleep… so many things
That need to be done tomorrow
Awake… do my best.
Late late late, always
late, a family trait, must be
from my father’s side.
I breathe in despair
And by some strange alchemy
learn to breathe out hope.
For you the sky and stars,
The sun and moon and clouds above.
For you, everything.
Sometimes when I grasp
a flower, meaning no harm,
I crush its fair form.
So many urgent
things that all need to be done
at once. Breathe, Scott. Breathe.
He tries to burn with
hope, lighting the room, a blaze
of warmth in the dark.
Hot hot hot hot hot.
Hot hot, hot hot hot hot hot.
Too damned fucking hot.
Crazy crazy cra…
zy crazy crazy crazy
busy busy day.
Whose idea was
this haiku thing anyway?
Always something new…
Sometimes they delight, sometimes they help us commiserate. But always they make me stop, if just for a minute, to get in touch with my emotions.
I like to write a bit every day.
This totally counts. Right?