Monday’s Walk, Traditional & Current #Haiku Forms #MondayBlogs

Posted on by Colleen M. Chesebro

I didn’t get a chance to use the prompt words this week for my own poetry challenge, so please forgive me.

I left early for my walk this morning. My phone shared the news that the weather was a mild 55 degrees F. Yet, I knew better. The winds in western Arizona howl across the desert making it feel far colder than the numbers suggest. Without a second thought, I grabbed my winter coat.

As soon as I shut the front door, the first wind gust hit me. Hang onto your hats, I thought, this was going to be a difficult workout!

At the end of my street, I paused to listen to the musical cries of the coyotes brought to me on those same winter winds. I slipped on my gloves and plodded onward.

On the way back, I noticed how the wind rolled over the clouds, making them look like waves in an ocean.

I snapped this photo because it would produce a winter Haiku and I wanted to memorialize those clouds. First, a traditional Haiku:

alabaster clouds
whitecaps in a blue sky sea
winter winds in flux

In the 3/5/3 format:

winter clouds
waves in a sky sea
winds in flux

In the 2/3/2 format:

pale clouds
sky surf swells
winter

all Haiku forms: ©2020 Colleen M. Chesebro

Haiku are often written about nature. True Haiku uses a kigo – a seasonal word to help define the season. Can you pick out my kigo seasonal words? They are: winter winds, winter clouds, and winter.

Why do we use Kigo? Because these words help to bring the reader into your personal experience by sharing the season. Traditional Haiku always required the use of a kigo.

Check out Wikipedia.org to find more kigo to make your Haiku shine.

Brave the winter winds and write some Haiku!

30 thoughts on “Monday’s Walk, Traditional & Current #Haiku Forms #MondayBlogs”

    1. It’s the brevity of words that has the most impact. I’m finding that if I start with the traditional method and work my way through the forms, they come out better. ❤

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          1. LOL! It’s usually not that cold here but this year it’s been really chilly. Some days I see road runners, cactus wrens, and lots of hummingbirds. Yesterday, not even Crow was about. The wind was horrible. ❤️

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        2. I love the pic and haiku, especially the first one. Nice comparison to the sea.

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