Pond
Sights, Sounds and Seasons
A pond is a
body of
standing water, either
natural or man-made that is usually smaller than a
lake. The variety of size,
shape, location, use and design is endless. The common
presence in all ponds of course is water and it is the water
that attracts both human and non-human activity. The two
hundred eighty-eight haiku submitted by forty-five haijin
from fifteen countries present the reader with an infinite
variety of pond life.
Some things are inevitably
inseparable: just as every sky has a horizon, it is
axiomatic that ever pond has a path.
this path
somewhere the sound
of water
# 211. Angie Werren, US
One of the distinguishing
qualities of Angie Werren's haiku is the portrayal of the
"sound / of water"; we hear the pond before we see it. A
"path" is a roadway—and
roadways always lead to a designated place—in
this case a pond. Ponds always invite the interactions of
humans and a variety of animal life. Water is after all a
necessity for life.
Some ponds are
seasonal—temporary places, depressions in the ground where
rain waters collect but later dry up and the pond
disappears. In this haiku we encounter a temporary pond:
signs of rain—
an old man pushing his boat
to the dried pond
# 282. Cezar F. Ciobīca, RO
In Cezar's haiku we find a
variety of sound elements: surly one of the "signs of rain"
is the sound of distant thunder drawing ever closer and let
us not forget the pleasant, cooling sound of the first rain
drops hitting the dry grasses and bear ground near the place
where a pond will soon collect. Secondly, it is easy to
imagine the sound of the boat as the old man "pushes" it
across the land surfaces. Is it the sound of wood scraping,
or perhaps metal. Ahhh...just listen..."
Human interaction is perhaps
one of the most common occurrences in the vicinity of a
pond:
old pond—
teaching my grandchild
how to skip stones
# 284. Cezar F. Ciobīca, RO
Both young and old are
attracted to water; in Cezar's memorable moment a
"grandparent" teaches a "grandchild" the age old art of
"stone skipping". It is easy to imagine the "plunk",
"plunk", sound of a stone prancing artfully across the water
surface as the elder demonstrates stone skipping skill. This
haiku is oriented to portraying both image and sound.
Hunger is a connecting event
between a human and a duck in Christine's haiku:
lunch date
she shares a sandwich
with a mallard duck
# 249. Christine L. Villa, US
This haiku is alive with
implied sounds: imagine the sound of the sandwich being
unwrapped—imagine
the sound of the duck emerging from the water, then
"quacking" as it snags food and hungrily consumes the shared
sandwich—then perhaps begging for more, and attracting other
creatures also...
The variety of life at a pond
is amazing—people of all ages—plants and creatures:
daylilies—
she cleans her hands
among the fish
# 213. Angie Werren, US
Here, perhaps
after eating and sharing her "lunch sandwich / with a
mallard duck" she washes her hands among the daylilies and
the fish. The brief stirring and splashing of water in a
pond is a familiar and memorable sound.
Children love to
visit the pond as well as adults—the water attracts humans
of all ages, but it is merry "laugh" of children we hear in
Radhey's haiku:
a piece
of rainbow
in the pond
children laugh
# 233. Radhey Shiam, IN
The children are
amused perhaps by the brief rain shower which has just
occurred; now, suddenly they see a "rainbow" reflected / "in
the pond"--...and there is laughter. The frolicking provides
the reader with a euphoric sense of their own childhood pond
memories... It is the sound of children laughing that
evokes the reader's past memories.
The interactions
of humans and water are inevitable; an angler, thinking a
prize game species has been landed at the fishpond, uses a
net to retrieve an expected game fish only to discover "just
a shoe". While the catch is at first amusing, it also
reminds us of the destructive dumping practices of humans:
at the
fishpond—
in a ragged net
just a shoe
# 171. Evica Kraljic, CR
Can't you just
hear the exciting sounds of the catch, and the disappointed
sputtering at the discovery of the "shoe".
The intrusion of
man on the natural environment is sometimes only temporary.
John's haiku captures the scene of an old and abandoned wood
row boat left to decay among the cattails, the wind, and the
water. Water is a great leveler, slowly returning the
man made boat to a more elemental state. Be sure to pause a
moment and listen to the "whisper" of the wind among the
cattails...t
half
filled with water
the old wood row boat—
cattails in the wind
# 133. John Daleiden, US
The variety of
life forms at a pond is a true potpourri of nature:
dragonglies, water stryders, gnomes, bullfrogs and other
creatures...
dragonfly
summer:
shards of colour
flit across the pond
# 48. Chitra Rajappa, IN
the
miles
a water stryder covers
my mirrored sky
# 253. Alegria Imperial, CA
pond gnome
the old bullfrog
on his hat
# 273. John Byrne, Ireland
dragonfly
summer:
shards of colour
flit across the pond
# 48. Chitra Rajappa, IN
feathered clouds
a water strider
skims the surface
# 186. Cara Holman, US
The natural
world of prey is very evident at a pond; survival has a
tremendous appetite:
cattails
growing
by the pond…
a blackbird’s shadow
# 188. Cara Holman, US
ducklings . . .
in the willow's shadow
a hawk
# 07. Margaret Beverland, NZ
stork ambush—
the sudden silence
of frogs and ducks
# 153. Stefanija Ludvig CR
In each of these
haiku there is a delicate balance between silence and the
implied noisy moment when the attacker captures its prey.
Listen carefully...do you hear both the implied sounds of
struggle and satisfaction?
Time and
seasonal change are factors that have a dramatic impact on
ponds and pond life; the images in these two haiku portray
the seasonal change to winter:
grey
clouds gather
a blanket of leaves
drifting on the pond
# 285 Keith A. Simmonds, TT
skating
on farmer Giles farm pond—
thin ice
# 102. John Daleiden, US
Night at a pond
reveals a unique feeling and a different set of conditions:
starry
pond
the pulsing throat
of a frog
# 10. Chen-ou Liu, CA
midnight noises
one bullfrog….
louder than the others
# 103. Bernard Gieske, US
Night time at a
pond under a full moon often leads a human to philosophical
contemplation:
near, yet
far away—
I touch the full moon
in the pond
# 269. Radhey Shiam, IN
a
miscellaneous collection of life forms
