quiet enough haiku by John Stevenson

Transcription

1 quiet enough haiku by John Stevenson

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3 quiet enough John Stevenson

4 quiet enough John Stevenson 2004, 2008 Red Moon Press PO Box 2461 Winchester VA USA Cover Painting: Georgia O Keeffe, Pelvis with the Distance 1943, oil on canvas, x Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana. Used with permission. Second Printing. ormp

5 Foreword John Stevenson writes plainly of things exactly as they are--a bruise, a bookmark, a dry sponge. What he says about a country graveyard applies precisely to each haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun in Quiet Enough: There is no fence or enclosing wall; no waste of space or undue sentiment. The poems are spare and open, easy to move into and beyond. Collected and skillfully linked, they form a coherent whole, offering glimpses of a survivor's story in a world past absurdity, where a stranger makes room / without looking and summer sun shows under an exit door. Acknowledging a half-chosen loneliness, Stevenson encourages connection and response. He speaks candidly of himself and responsibly of others, always treating his readers with courteous regard. Careful not to mislead or encroach, he conveys significant moments of human experience with awareness of the ironies

6 of language and situation that inform them. He is also aware of the place of this unassuming work in world history and literature. That every simple word is important in such compressed genres is integral to his vision and message. Hope is a recurrent theme, but it is a hope so modest, pelted, vague, and fragile that it might not exist at all without being called by name. The book itself is a testament to the endurance of that hope. Never slight or onedimensional and often profound, the individual pieces interweave, leaving space for threads readers will add. The hope is in the sharing and the linking, in the listening and in words that are just enough. Peggy Willis Lyles Tucker, Georgia May 2, 2004

7 quiet enough

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9 May morning the door opens before I knock

10 first warm day the ground gives a little

11 the pond two swans fill green grass my hopes just so high

12 spreading through the woods the Native Plant Society

13 Maine shore bits of clam between my teeth frogs beyond frogs... cloudless night

14 a change in their voices... children finding a fledgling

15 merging traffic in the corner of my eye the crescent moon a deep bruise I don t remember getting autumn evening

16 shooting star what do fish see at night?

17 coming home on the train... the backyards in American Sign the lily opens...

18 now that I have turned off the television the winter night

19 first snow what a racket from the geese

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21 Untitled They rise from the opposite bank of the river. Everyone around me is asleep. The muffled sounds wake no one. night train the fireworks you missed

22 Palm Sunday following the plow to church

23 three sneezes filling the gas tank on top of everything rain

24 I know the rules the wind blows the leaves move

25 September morning none of the students has failed... winter sun a stranger makes room without looking

26 walking home barefoot, we enter the shadow of the hill (for M.V.)

27 pelting rain a bird in the gutter plucks a chicken bone unspoken question an old man s back

28 a crowded street I m the one who steps in it

29 dad s life just a little longer than Napoleon s our sleeping bags the lingering scent of old campfires

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31 Uncle the way he slaps his cards on the table, as if it means something A relative by marriage crude and ignorant. I didn t think much of him most of the time. But, to my surprise, he was the person in my family who inspired the most interest among my friends in college because he was the one who had done things. As a teenager in the late 1930s he had toured the country and much of Canada on a motorcycle. He had fought in North Africa, France and Germany. He d had a long series of entrepreneurial businesses that he never stayed with long enough to become bored. He hadn t gotten rich but he didn t owe anyone either and he d built most of the houses he lived in during the past thirty years five of them. the way he slapped his cards on the table, as if it meant something

32 their laughter is not about me but would sound just like that if it was

33 still a newcomer to this rural village for how many years have our hedges grown a little more than we have trimmed them

34 summer sunrise a man on a ladder changing the price of gas

35 still ahead of us the storm we ve been driving toward

36 the mirror wiped clean for a guest

37 drama class a sparrow flies into the room the tethered dog watches the guide dog enter a deli

38 expensive dinner the hush of the menu

39 summer night the sound of a car about to go by last vacation day a ring of iced tea evaporates

40 parting with my telescope and with it a certain way of seeing myself

41 the leaves were just budding when you left me later you claimed I could have stopped you

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43 Spring There is no fence or enclosing wall; no waste of space or undue sentiment. country graveyard the close pass of a plow

44 snowy night sometimes you can t be quiet enough

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46 curling tighter a leaf catches fire

47 since you moved just a road I don t go down new snow the arc the door makes

48 winter rain puddles on the river

49 little sister tags along kelp among the rocks wind shifting pool toys... to the other side

50 spring meadow she wants me to write a poem for her now and not worry that I might write a better one later (for Pat Shelley)

51 June and the leaves so green I almost tell the truth

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53 Stood Up Working with an improvisational theatre company for the past ten years has trained me to be aware of my surroundings and obliged me to accommodate spontaneity. While I can always count on the other actors to be there in the course of a performance, before and afterward is another story. dining alone I rehearse a conversation

54 seeing it her way it must have been lonely living with me

55 one last look through the old apartment a dry sponge right now while we chat fish in the deep ocean

56 thin winter coat so little protection against her boyfriend

57 autumn wind the leaves are going where I m going much read, her Bible no longer closes completely

58 moving day the other men in her life

59 cold blue sky coughing up a couple of clouds personal kigo the same pain as this time last year

60 of course the summer sky is beautiful I must t hate them for saying it so often

61 the ring itself I don t remember as much as the mark it left when it came off

62 last piece of a jigsaw puzzle... filling in the sky

63 parkas out shopping for a wedding dress Father s Day she tells me I m not the father

64 engrossed in work the snow begins to stick

65 hazy moon what to say to your machine New Year s Day ice flies from the roof of a car

66 mountain ginko all the haiku a little breathless

67 a bit of birdsong before we start our engines on the beach the tracks of two lounge chairs

68 leaves budding a little girl spinning in her dress

69 waiting for you the faces of missing children in the pollen on my car her signature

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71 Untitled with time the piles of leaves have settled Why does my son lie to me about the trouble he s in? It's so much like the trouble I was in. deep in a dream the door to a storm cellar

72 thin heat a lake island with four pines

73 dog day the slight coolness of a cast-iron stove matinee the summer sun under an exit door

74 Mother s Day that first breath of air outside the door

75 a child s art the tulips tower over everything applauding the mime in our mittens

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77 Making and Breaking An easy life punctuated by the making and breaking of inconsequential habits. A few weeks, during which a twenty ounce bottle of soda is consumed each afternoon at work, ending one day with a stomach ache or not enough pocket change and a reluctance to borrow. A couple years in which the laundry and grocery shopping are done on Wednesday evenings... names of the dead in the newspaper spoken once, out loud

78 childhood home twilight as I arrive

79 cool summer morning I take my thoughts out to the porch (with Seneca Kennedy) all new clothes waiting for the school bus

80 shopping alone the doors part for me

81 barks at me every day but just lately he sounds lonely three times I ve said your husband... now we can just talk

82 jampackedelevatoreverybuttonpushed

83 between Pompey and Caesar I place my bookmark home from work a day s heat in the vestibule

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85 Ishmael I m nearly fifty three an age my father never reached and reading Moby Dick for the first time. The outline of the story is well known to me, so I m surprised by the suspense I feel; not about what will happen but about the precise way in which it will come to pass. One morning I m reading in my office, before things really get started there, and it slowly becomes clear that something is unusual in my surroundings. At the other end of the seventh floor everyone is crowded around a television. between people a glimpse of the second tower

86 hope without knowing what for autumn colors

87 after the nightmare moonlight in the kitchen winter twilight tire tracks in a trailer park

88 summer dusk insulation hanging from a power line

89 early Alzheimer s she says she ll have... the usual trying to fit in time for my son to practice parallel parking

90 summer in the sun in your room

91 silent prayer worn floorboards Amish country the deer beside the road stare at us

92 warm evening an open door to someone s living room

93 extra innings a runner s shadow down the third base line fireflies... could i still catch one?

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95 Wish What was it? You know only that you were on the verge of something and that it seemed to promise some kind of pleasure. Back you go, seeking it; unswinging wish to thought, to thought's reason in previous thoughts. Quite lost. lake light a hummingbird at the feeder

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97 Awards & Acknowledgements quiet enough won First Prize in the Haiku Society of America Merit Book Awards for The judges for the contest, Dean Summers and Ruth Yarrow, explained their decision thus: Our number-one criterion for judging this year s 51 submissions was this: If a friend wanted to learn about English-language haiku, we wanted to be able to recommend the Merit Book Award winners and say, This is haiku. We looked for full and consistent expressions of economy, immediacy, depth, and resonance. Some of the material in this collection first appeared, occasionally in slightly different form, in Acorn, Asahi Shinbum, The Christian Science Monitor, Contemporary Haibun, Frogpond, Geppo, Haijinx, Haiku Light, The Heron s Nest, Journeys, Lynx, Mariposa, Modern Haiku, Past Time: Baseball Haiku, Raw Nervz, Rusty Paper Clip, See Haiku Here, Simply Haiku, South by Southeast, Starfish, TSA Newsletter, Tanka Splendor, Tundra, Upstate Dim Sum, World Wall Two, and The Writer.

98 About the Author Since the first printing of quiet enough John Stevenson has served a term as president of the Haiku Society of America, three years as editor of Frogpond, and currently is managing editor of The Heron's Nest.

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100 quiet enough is John Stevenson s second full-length book of haiku and related forms (Some of the Silence, 1999), and third such collection overall (something uneraseable, 1996). The author is a past President of the Haiku Society of America, as well as serving as its Treasurer and Editor for Frogpond, its international membership journal. He is currentlymanaging Editor of The Heron s Nest. [Stevenson] welcomes us to share his experiences... I too am moved to a respectful silence. Christopher Herold The Heron s Nest... poems of uncommon psychological complexity and uniformly high technical achievement. [They] resonate with individual angst, self-conscious humor and an unfailing eye for natural detail. Stevenson does not need to be heavy to be good. He can laugh at himself in the tradition of the best senryu poets and toss off jewels of subtle beauty and restraint in his more classical haiku. James Chessing Modern Haiku ISBN Haiku / Poetry $12