Poetry Series: Five Haiku Sequences
By Joshua St. Claire
Bio
Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from a small town in Pennsylvania who works as a financial director for a large non-profit. His haiku and related poetry have been published broadly including in The Asahi Shimbun, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Mayfly. He has received recognition in the following international contests/awards for his work in these forms: the Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational, the San Francisco International Award for Senryu, the Touchstone Award for Individual Haiku, the British Haiku Society Award for Haiku, and the Trailblazer Award.
Spring Haiku
the Angelus
a chickadee pecks
through sillion
Decoration Day
another year without
the scent of lilacs
robin’s nest
a cowbird flings down
the sky
Paschal Moon
at the feet of St. Teresa
fleabane
rising tide
the waves bring in
sunset
no closer to God returning geese
cowbird chick
what we thought
we knew
pressed pansies
in her diary
old lovers
broken tulips somehow more beautiful like this
Anglicana
cirrus intortus
cross the horizon
Summer Haiku
the cicada’s hum
fades into the background
window air conditioner
great blue heron
a thunderhead towering
over the Chesapeake
sweet tea
it’s not the heat
it’s the humidity
nothing much to it summer night
describing
her ancestral plantation
oleander
Queen Anne’s lace
she weaves garlands
of globular clusters
yes, but that was in another life
golden lotus
a golden hand
hands me a golden melon
Summerland
longleaf pines
an egret fishing
for a crocodile’s eyes
dandelion clocks perfectly still Arcadia
sirens
pulling me the earth
scent of white clover
Autumn Haiku
lengthening shadows
a dog barks at something
nothing
sand plover nest
the waves ripple a feather
star’s arms
funnel web
a grass spider crossing
the event horizon
laughing gull
a rogue wave engulfs
the kite flyer
the waves
curl around the moon
darkness returns
discussing the difference
between bravery and courage
pileated woodpeckers
stations of the cross
a bloodied buck staggers under a blackthorn
flying fish
reach Fumalsamakah
Atlantic blue marlin
a tern’s cry
further and further…
white horses
Shaula and Lesath
the play of light
in the buck’s blood
Winter Haiku
snowman
the boys put a carrot nose
on Meissa
each and every joint
nor’easter
insomnia
the Quiet moon
on snow
through birches
amaryllis
red cheeks
out in the snow
sarcophagus
bare branches
entombed in ice
snow squall
a wild hare
turns white
winter carnival
the whirling eddies
of drifting snow
thundersnow
rounding the horizon
a cougar’s breath
beaver moon
what has fallen down
has fallen down
pine ridge
a northern harrier swoops
above below
Eleven Haiku
moving whether or not shadows
low tide
the paradox
of choice
up in smoke the crescent moon
no moonlight left now
to glitter on the magpie’s
gathered gold
over the hill
some clouds close
others distant
counting
grains of sand
Avogadro’s number
impasto brushwork
sundogs flare in the cirrostratus sky
powder room
his Picasso face
in the spoon
annual bonus
I buy my cats
an imitation tree
sea cucumber
she says she’ll do
anything once
perhaps you only know me by my haigo:
oak-leafed hydrangea
Artist Statement
I have been studying and writing haiku since 2021. Haiku quickly became part of my daily writing practice. One of the key features of haiku is the kigo or season word. The kigo is an image that anchors the haiku to the natural world while also often indirectly referencing the transience of natural phenomena. Like the Japanese, I also live in an environment with four seasons (although some writers may experience more or fewer seasons), which helps me to organize my thoughts and order these poems. The strict requirement of a haiku requiring a seasonal kigo has been contentious for centuries. The Japanese have long published saijiki, dictionaries of kigo which indicate their seasonality. These have often included non-seasonal words, which remain grounded in nature (shooting star or earthquake for example). The seasonal haiku sequences in this set, have a strong explicit connection to seasonal changes. In Eleven Haiku, I have included poems which are in conversation with this tradition. I believe that nonseasonal nature imagery can still anchor these poems to the natural world (such as low tide and over the hill) and also that despite the exclusion of nature imagery these haiku can also offer important insight into the human condition (such as powder room and annual bonus).