The Story of My Haikus

I’ve been writing haikus.  Maybe you've noticed.

There’s a reason.

Christy and Ryan
Christy is crying because it is time to leave
and this is her last year as a camper.
But she found out she can come back next
year on staff!

Ryan and Christy are long-time campers, and they always bring lots of fun ideas with them when they come.  They came for Teen 1 week of camp and cooked up the idea of writing haikus.  Once they started, they got on a roll and couldn’t stop.  

They decorated their cabin with haikus and wrote one for every person in their cabin. 

They wrote one for the kitchen staff.

  

And they wrote one for me.

I'll have to explain about Hashtag in another post.

After I received their haiku, I wrote one back to both the girls.  When they received it in the camp mail I could see both of them reading it and counting on their fingers to see if I got it right.  (Some of you have been doing it too.)

So that is what got me on my haiku writing kick.  That and just being in this beautiful place.

For those of you that don’t know, the definition of a haiku is as follows:

1. a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.

   • an English imitation of this.

I have found the natural world around me very inspiring this summer.  It always is, but I’ve spent more time noticing, paying attention.  And as I experience these moments, thinking about the writing of the haikus has made me focus on the experience in a deeper way than I might otherwise do.  Listening for the sounds, thinking of a specific word that really expresses what I’m seeing, paying attention to all my senses in the experience, has made all the difference.

Each year people, campers and staff, bring us gifts of talents and thoughts that bless us.  Ryan and Christy gave me a great gift this summer.  I am thankful for the treasure it has been for me.