Saturday, September 20, 2025

Poetic Musings: Lotus Pond Haiku by David He

lotus pond
a frog's song vibrates
the other world

NeverEnding Story, September 7, 2024

David He

Commentary: The twist in L3 adds a spiritual/religious bent to this frog haiku when evaluated in the Buddhist context of "lotus pond" (often associated with purity and spiritual awakening/enlightenment) and "other world" (or "other shore, a literary phrase used in Buddhist texts")

Technically speaking, David's fine haiku reminds me of the following one:

pulling light
from the other world ...
the Milky Way

Yatsuka Ishihara, a revered Japanese haiku master who claimed, "A haiku should present the truth as if it were fiction," at the 1995 HSA-HI Chicago Conference


And it might be interesting to do a thematic comparison reading of my haiku (allusive to Basho's frog haiku) below:

lotus pond …
all that remains
of frog song


FYI: This is the concluding haiku of my haibun, "The Old Man Who Read Basho"

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