Poetic Musings: Dry Creekbed Haiku by Chuck Brickley

dry creekbed

the gleam of a bullet shell

the only sound

Earthshine, 2017

Chuck Brickley

Commentary: L1 sets the scene and mood while the use of synesthesia in Ls 2&3 reveals a history of violence, where synecdoche is employed to show its "loud and bright" voice against Mother Earth as symbolized by L1.

What's left unsaid, such as the cause(s) of this "dry" creekbed, why is there a bullet left at the bottom of a highly unlikely place, a creek..., is far more potent than what's stated in this "nature/creek" haiku.

This haiku reminds me of the following remark:

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty."

-- Seamus Heaney, Ireland's most renowned poet since Yeats, playwright and translator who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature,

And the following haiku could be read as its prequel:

snowmelt

the border mountain drips

bullet by bullet

Frogpond, 47:2, Spring/Summer 2024

Srinivasa Rao Sambangi