Roque Island Haiku
Encouraged by members of the Deer Isle Writers’ Group, I am trying my hand at writing haiku. Here is a series of ten haiku describing a circumnavigation of Roque Island that my son, Matt, and I did together several summers ago.
Roque Island
Fair day gentle wind
We launch from shore aflutter
A new adventure
Crescent beach tall cliffs
An astonishing vista
Even better shared
Sun on the water
Twin kayaks bob and glisten
Crossing Shorey Cove
Great Head looms starboard
Eight miles of voyage complete
Gratifying day
Sudden wind cold mist
Two miles of open water
Dare we make the crossing?
Dense fog obscures all
Clenching compass in my teeth
I paddle forward
Son in the water
Kayak upended by waves
Grim brume fills my heart
Rushing to rescue
We get him back in his boat
Brief lifting of fog
A glimpse of shoreline
Taking another bearing
We paddle with hope
Kayaks touch the beach
Alighting and approaching
Sharing happy hug
2 thoughts on “Roque Island Haiku”
Beautiful words, Tim.
All the UCC churches in our conference are closed today, due to the Cornonavirus. I choose to immerse myself in Believer’s Journal, catching up on posts I might have missed.
I just saw a version of this on the internet. I thought of your own haiku, Tim.
The Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, usually 17 syllables in three lines. Recently, in Japan they began composing haiku to replace impersonal Microsoft messages that alert you to some computer failure or another. Five examples:
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Three things are certain
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
I ate your Web page.
Forgive me; it was tasty
And tart on my tongue.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.