The sensation of touch – whether we’re touching something or someone or we’re being touched – is often an unrecorded sensation. We’re much more likely to respond strongly to taste or smell. But from the moment we’re born our vulnerable skin is wrapped in a textile or fibre, and we do that until we are dressed for the final time and our earthly remains commended to the elements.
Our skin is our largest organ and is constantly absorbing and classifying contact sensations. As I type this only my face and hands are exposed and I realise that I haven’t for a long time considered how my fingerpads feel the keyboard keys and what messages they’re sending to my brain. Given that I’ve been using typewriters and keyboards for more than 40 years, I might be forgiven for falling into non-observance but it’s a timely prod that I could well do to examine this facet of my haiku writing.
feet up
toes spread wide
I catch
8 tiny summer breezes
Anita Virgil
from Montage (The Haiku Foundation, 2010)
cat’s tongue
licks the Atlantic
from my damp skin
Doris Lynch
from Another Trip Around the Sun (Brooks Books, 2019)
summer morning
the riverbed stones warm
beneath my feet
John Barlow
from Stepping Stones: a way into haiku (BHS, 2007)
yu no nagori koyoi wa hada no samukara n
tonight my skin
will miss the hot spring
it seems colder
Basho, tr Jane Reichhold
from Basho: The complete haiku (Kodansha, 2008)
The translator’s note to this haiku, written in autumn 1689, is that the poet gave the haiku to Toyo, the son of the innkeeper, as he was leaving the hot springs resort at Yamanaka, near Kanazawa. In her introduction to this section of haiku, Reichhold notes that Basho had become ‘infatuated’ with the young man.
drafty temple –
only the buddha
not shivering
Stanford M Forrester
from Montage (The Haiku Foundation, 2010)
mother’s ashes
the mountain wind
on my hands
Meg Arnot
Morika International Haiku Contest, 2019
my thumbprint
on this thousand-year-old pot
fits hers
Ruth Yarrow
from Montage
haguki kayuku chikubi kamu ko ya hanagumori
gums itching
the baby bites my nipple –
spring’s hazy sky
Sugita Hisajo, tr Makoto Ueda
from Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women
(Columbia University Press, 2003)
summer haze –
on the small of my back
the feel of his palm
Patricia Prime
from Wishbone Moon (Jacar Press, 2018)
breath, a collection of haiku 