hosts : Sanjuktaa Asopa & Aparna Pathak
loon calls
my daughter drawing circles
near the fire
-- Marjorie Buettner
( First place in Harold G. Henderson haiku award. 2002)
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hosts : Sanjuktaa Asopa & Aparna Pathak
loon calls
my daughter drawing circles
near the fire
-- Marjorie Buettner
( First place in Harold G. Henderson haiku award. 2002)
Thank you everybody for your analytical comments. I was haunted by this ku and have kept going back to it over all these years. Finally here's the explanation by the poet herself. Hope it answers all your questions.
The event actually occurred when my family and I were camping. It was a quiet gathering around the camp fire and my daughter drew circles while a loon's call circled above us in the sky. It was a matter of literally experiencing that ancient saying "as above, so below."
Such a mysterious and beautiful ku.
https://loon.org/the-call-of-the-loon/#:~:text=The%20wail%20is%20frequently%20heard%20during%20night%20chorusing.&text=The%20hoot%20is%20a%20soft,during%20low%2Dlevel%20territorial%20interactions.
My POV:
The beauty of the poem lies in the ambiguity of 'loon calls'. Is the daughter mesmerized by the loon ( wading bird) or is she kind of spellbound by the sound of a loon's ( someone who acts strange on the night of a full moon) strange voice ( call maybe).
Waiting to read the poet's explanation. Like Firdaus, I know there's a verticle axis playing here, which I'm not able to pin.
An evocative image using audio visual effect well. I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning to the loon’s call and the child drawing circles.