hosts : Sanjuktaa Asopa & Kashiana Singh
long before language the S of the river
---- Annette Makino
(Touchstone Individual Poem Award 2020; First place, Porad Award, 2020; A New Resonance 13: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, Red Moon Press, 2023)
Indeed something great !
Man's only task is to tear off the dead skin of language until 'he finds himself in the hour of the great nakedness'.
Love this poem.
Thank you for all your comments.
Meanwhile, the poet, Annette Makino, says:
Here is a bit of background on this poem.
Every summer for the past 27 years, my family has spent a week at a rustic cabin near the Klamath River, a large river river in rural Northern California. One sunny morning I was taking a walk and noticed that seen from above, the river's curves made an elegant “S” shape. Of course, only we humans, inventors of language and symbols, would identify and name that shape as an “S.”
Meanwhile, I have been thinking about how humans have been destroying our environment, especially with regard to climate change. To counter my feelings of despair, I try…
Such a great one liner!
Wish I can write these master's stroke lines!!