Haiki-kai in Iriya

My new friend Yukiko brought me to her haiku group in Iriya yesterday. We met in a temple without a photocopier so all the haiku were copied out by hand by each member of the group. We started at 2pm and finished the second after session at a local resturant after 9pm.

 I met up with an old friend at the haiku meeting by surprise. When I knew him years ago his handle was Zen, he now goes by Radio. Below, Radio takes my 19 syllable poem and converts it into a 5-7-5 haiku. He used an alternative name for hydrangea as 'seven color flower' to make the syllable count work. He has suggested I take a haiku name but I'm still thinking about what that could be.

Kurenboh Gallery Reading and Exhibition

 

Lunch Poems @ Dokkyo

After Zon Samine read yesterday, we had coffee and took the train to Senju with Megumi Watanabe, MIzuho Ishida, and Barbara Tomash (visiting Tokyo from Berkeley)

Walking Eight of the 88 Temples of Shikoku

Po Chu-i on a ship, me on a plane

I leave my Oakland desk with this poem by Po Chu-i that my dear Teneal sent to me in the mail years ago.

On Board Ship Reading Yuan Chen's Poem (c. 1815)
by Po Chu-i (translator?)

I take your poems in my hand &
read them beside the candle
The poems are finished, the candle is
low, dawn not yet come.
My eyes smart; I put out the lamp &
go on sitting in the dark
Listening to waves that, driven by
the wind, strike the prow of the ship