Friday, April 23, 2021

Special Feature: Environmentally Conscious Haiku and Tanka for Climate Action Now

                                                     the globe balanced
                                                     on the back of a turtle
                                                     Earth Day
                                                         Selected Haiku, 2017 Yamadera Basho Memorial Museum English Haiku Contest
                                                                          Chen-ou Liu
                                                                          (FYI:This haiku alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle
                                                                                   that supports the earth on its back)

My Dear Friends:

US President Biden hosted a two-day Climate Change Summit of world leaders, which coincided with Earth Day, to address the global climate crisis. The President committed the US to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% below its 2005 emissions levels by 2030, emphasizing, "This will be 'decisive decade' for tackling climate change" (Matt McGrath, BBC News, April 22).

I would like to share with you the following environmentally conscious haiku and tanka to improve  our  awareness about environmental problems, spark new reflections, and add a new layer of complexity to pondering difficult questions raised in the  Summit. 


Selected Haiku and Tanka:

Earth Day
the world in a grain
of polymer

LeRoy Gorman

treasure hunting
in the Yamuna river
for your love
all I find is fear
mixed with plastic

Aruna Rao

each of them
wants a part of me
I am Antarctica
belonging to no one
yet bearing many flags

Kat Lehmann

black oil slick
washed up on the beach -- 
looking
in the dead dolphin’s eye
I see a part of myself

Lavana Kray

old pond
      oil slick rainbows
                    slip in

Lorin Ford

with the plastic bag
a stork wraps the moon
on its head

Ken Sawitri

Saharan dust
clouds my Texas sky
            strong winds
of uncertainty
sweep across the globe

Janet Lynn Davis

canyon stream
dried to a slit
of clear sky

Jane Reichhold

a tail of clouds
skims the Dragoon Mountains
in the river valley,
a plume of smoke rises
from the dynamite factory

Jari Thymian

bare hills
the horizon looped
between post and wire

Jo McInerney

first to bud
uprooted shrubs
in the landfill

LeRoy Gorman 

recycling centre
where to put the dreams
of yesterday

Sebastian Salie 

(r)egret along the riverbank acid rain

Marianne Paul

I follow the trickle
of this childhood creek
Earth Day

Chen-ou Liu

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