Simply Haiku, December 2003, Volume 1, Number 6

December 2003, Volume 1, Number 6

Janice Bostok

Janice Bostok has been writing the Japanese forms for over thirty years and has found it an integral part of life. While haiku come to her as part of life in her environment, tanka are forced out by the emotions experienced from within. Her book: Amongst The Graffiti, Collected haiku & senryu, with a foreword by William J. Higginson is available from PostPressed: www.postpressed.com.au

humid day
at the war memorial
his name on the wall
chilled
in sepia light

home coming joy
the slipper orchid bud
has grown fuller
it did not need my counsel
but silently accepts my praise

red carnation
grown from cut flowers
a gift last winter
bright with hope and promise
of another year for us

easter day
when you departed this world
a deep loneliness
odours my distant childhood
with honest farmer's sweat

purple swamp hen
uses the footbridge to cross
unlike i who have
no way to help you make
the transition to old age

'Dimmed The Mystery, Snapshots Press, UK, 2000