haikaiTALKS: season words / seasonal reference | a saturday gathering_under the banyan tree
host: Lev Hart
29th June 2024
haikaiTALKS: a saturday gathering_under the banyan tree
THE SEASONS: Part 4
Below, the beauty of Teji Sethi’s phrase is enhanced by the fragment, a kigo:
monsoon showers
the attic smells
of childhood banter
(tejisethi13, HAIKUsutradhar, Feb 12, 2023)
The juxtaposition connects two auditory images, the children’s banter with the patter of rain on the roof. One becomes a tacit simile for the other. The rain’s sound becomes tinged with the playfulness of children’s banter; and their voices, with the timelessness of pattering rain. The harmony between the season and the moment expresses the sentiment of Robert Browning, “all’s right with the world.”
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to compose two haiku on Varsha Ritu, the monsoon season. Connect the season with the moment; the kigo, with the rest of the verse. Here’s a few relevant kigo that have appeared on our web pages over the years: ceaseless rain, incessant rain, monsoon drizzle, receding flood, failed monsoon, and monsoon clouds. We also have our own saijiki, with a list of kigo for Varsha Ritu:
Finally, you might want to riff off any of the details from Mohua’s description of Varsha Ritu:
The rainy season rain is different from other rains and is typically incessant and mostly silent, that is there may be no thunder or lightning. Sometimes, there is lightning but no thunder. So there is this heavy silence broken only by the patter of rain – one that lulls you to sleep, engages when you wake up in the middle of the night and then you wake up to fresh clean morning air – still raining. It just goes on weeping – sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly. The trees and plants look clean, fresh, green and happy to be paddling in stem deep water.
Having never experienced the monsoon season, I could not have written this piece without Mohua’s assistance. Thank you, Mohua. I am deeply grateful.
Your host for haikaiTALKS Lev Hart
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Thank you for doing this for us, Lev. Members,
Please give your feedback on others' commentary and poems too. _()_
This is an exciting phase for haikaiTALKS! Have fun! Keep writing and commenting! _kala