she's sleeping beneath trunks of trees, falling in love with bellies of leaves now its a haiku ... i like it a lot! and one for you in traditional japanese form gentle ocean waves peach blossoms and flowing streams i could sleep for years
I love it Mui! Its simple but I love peaches, flowing streams and sleeping, so it is perfect for relating to!
thanks Moonjava...wish I had seen Mui's alteration initially but I guess thats the point of posting prose here, after all!
I like it, beautiful and very descriptive for it's shortness. You really get a sense of the scene. I'm not sure if it could be haiku, because you say she's falling in love, but that's a judgement and haiku is supposed to be zen: just direct description without opinion. But hell, who cares? It's great even if it isn't haiku.
Weren't original haikus japanese... like, before zen even arrived in japan... What my teachers tought me is that in a traditional haiku... t he first 2 lines represent something about nature, and the third line ties in that nature to humanity. and in that sense i think his poem would make a good haiku... all he had to do was get rid of some of the words that he didnt really need in it to make it a haiku
yeah, the japanese invented haiku, but I thought the zen monks were the ones who did. All I know is that it's generally about nature (I don't think they have to relate to humans), and should just be observational, not opinionated or humanized (saying "the sleepy sun" ...the sun doesn't sleep, so that's humanized). No judgement, just direct experience...very zen. Interestingly, the 5-7-5 syllable scheme in japaneese actually translates to 3-5-3 syllables in english, because english syllables carry more meaning than japanese ones. So haiku in english should be written 3-5-3.
