Virtual Ginko and Haiku Sharing – 27 February 2021

Participants were asked ahead of the February 27 Zoom meeting to go outdoors and remain rooted in one spot and to draft haiku using all their physical senses and take note of what they could see / hear / touch / smell / taste.

All haiku poets know the word, ginko, for a haiku walk and then sharing of haiku. What might have been new was the Japanese word, kokoro, which means to unite heart and mind in one moment. One spot! One moment! This was our challenge.

I encouraged participants to be aware of details that might have been missed if they kept moving and passed through without stopping and to share these along with their haiku. Also, members were asked, if possible, to send a photograph of their special spot that could be shared in a slide show, along with one or two of their haiku. Brief comment on how and why that particular spot had been chosen would be welcomed. 

When we met on Zoom, what a treasure trove of haiku!

By showing photographs and describing these special spots, BHS members learned new things about other and gained a deeper appreciation of the hearts & minds of members and how haiku can bring others to a moment in time as we experience it. May I add that, listening to the haiku, what came to my mind was the masterpiece of modern literature, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. The actual title in French translates as In Search of Lost Time. BHS members proved the possibility not of losing time, but capturing it! That is the miracle of haiku, yes?

Write-up by Neal Whitman