Haiku
Japanese maple
Still drooping rubicund leaves
Rich in slanting light
Written for the word of the day, rubicund, at Poem of the Day.
Still drooping rubicund leaves
Rich in slanting light
Written for the word of the day, rubicund, at Poem of the Day.
posted by MB at 12:32 PM
4 Comments:
I like the haiku form. So much in so little. I felt comforted at the end of it.
Puts me in mind of a beautiful bonsai I once saw, so dramatic in color and form.
Mermaid, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Good things do sometimes come in small packages.
Moira, this one was written about the tree outside my window, caught glowing in the slanting light of the setting sun. It's small, maybe 6 feet, but not bonzai small! Plenty of drama, though.
Ken, I'm glad you felt the warm mood. It's hard, using few words, to know if I've sketched enough to carry a feeling. I don't know if leaves can droop in a rubicund manner, but rubicund leaves can and do droop right here out my window! That second line is written in an ambiguous, unpunctuated manner (does still mean not moving, or that the leaves are not yet fallen from the tree?) (are the leaves drooping in a rubicund manner, or are rubicund leaves drooping? or is it the maple that is drooping, not specifically the leaves?) ...etc. I decided to leave it ambiguous because I felt that all the interpretations applied. To me, that runic quality is the delight of haiku.
Nice haiku, with the needed seasonal element, capturing a transient moment, and correct rhythm. I had to look up rubicund. The noun form is "rubicundity." Can you imagine throwing that in a sentence?
To me, the drooping, red leaves imply a weightiness that the tree is soon to be free of. That is part of the transience necessary in haiku, and inherent in the seasons.
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