using the headlines
to practise origami –
swans in Fukushima
– Sandra Simpson, NOON 11 (March 2016), Japan
Haiku Husband noticed the “goodie box” headline in The Japan News delivered to our hotel room in Hiroshima on November 20, 2015. Swans herald winter, it said. “Swans have been spotted in Lake Inawashiro in Fukushima Prefecture, marking the arrival of winter. A conservation group representative says they arrived a week earlier than usual.” Read the full story here. It ends by saying there would be about 3000 swans at the lake by the end of February.
Bewick’s swan. Photo: Dick Daniels, Wikimedia Commons
On October 12, 2015 the Gloucester Citizen newspaper in the UK reckoned the early arrival of swans from Siberia foretold a bitter winter, saying the Bewick’s swan (Cygnus bewickii) sets off with the raw Arctic cold hot on its tail – the first swan arrived 25 days earlier than in 2014. Read that story here.
a moment before sunrise –
ice singing
beneath the swans’ feet
– Martin Lucas (UK), winner of the Katikati Haiku Contest, 2010
a full moon
resting on hoar-frost meadows
tundra swans
– Jane Reichhold (US), from her AHA website
I’m slowly reading Basho: The Complete Haiku translated and edited by Jane Reichhold but the index of haiku content shows nothing for swans! Read more about the book here.
mute swan
at the base of its neck
a tracking device
– Kathleen O’Toole (US), Honourable Mention, Turtle Light Press Contest 2010
A mute swan in flight. Photo: Pjt56, Wikimedia Commons
To complete this sampling of swan haiku I consulted Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (Snapshot Press, 2008) edited by John Barlow and Matthew Paul.
snow light …
meltwater falls
from a swan’s bill
– John Barlow
This is the other excellent swan haiku in the book, which I couldn’t resist, despite being in the ‘wrong’ season. Both haiku are about mute swans (Cygnus olor).
summer clouds –
two swans passing
beat for beat
– John Crook
breath, a collection of haiku 