Tiny poems have been winging their way to Eye all week, after we invited readers to try their hand at the classic haiku form. Some of you exercised your Quakerliness to keep in right ordering. Our first haiQ, from Ian McPherson, apparently didn't fulfil the letter, if it did the spirit, for one reader.

Wrote Bill Schaeffer: 'the tutor in my writing class told us that a haiku has lines of five, seven, and five syllables, which the example of Ian McPherson does not. Is it possible that the following observation does not apply to him?'

In order to write
A haiku one must have a
Very high IQ

Generally speaking, your haikus did hit the seventeen syllables mark, if in different formats.
Here a Quaker beekeeper, Anna Botwright, shows profound gratitude that her charges have made it through the winter.
A late winter hive –
Tender sun recalls warm days
Bees break loose and soar

Eye liked this one about 'presence' – although it lacked a season-word:
Complete perception
Zero interpretation
Perfect presence now
(Richard Chapman)

Some missed the syllable count but were magical nevertheless:
In the half dark
Hidden in the hawthorn –
A nightingale sings
(Denise Bennett)

Seasons are important for haikus. They should all contain a 'season word'. Here are two for February.
Squirrels leap, greet
The greening of the park –
Wheeling seagulls presage rain
(Jennifer Kavanagh)

clouds smudge the sky
behind bare trees -
in the dark field crows excavate the spring
(SF)

And another bee presence:
Dripping parasols
Bee-worked lavender, roses,
Incense of garden
(Rilla Dudley)

We'll decorate our page with occasional haikus and in the meantime we'll sign off with one of our own:
Very small poems
Sunlight and essence follow –
our concentration
(Eye)

Labels: haiku