PORT TOWNSEND — They gather on a December afternoon at a house near Fort Worden State Park, the cars crowding the unpaved lane dusted with snow.
Each person who enters the house brings an offering, placing it on a table in the main room overlooking the yard where birds swoop back and forth to a feeder hanging from a tree branch.
Moving to the kitchen, the human visitors stand with cups of tea warming their hands, then migrate back to the living room where chairs are set in a circle.
The owner of the house, Doris Thurston, rings a gong to convene the monthly meeting of the Port Townsend Haiku Group.
Going around the circle, each member reads aloud two haikus written especially for this day’s gathering.
crimson toenails
a robin flits through
the fence hole
— Margaret McGee
Margaret McGee is a member of the group and author of books on spiritual awareness that blend Eastern and Western religious practices. Her latest, Haiku — the sacred art: A Spiritual Practice in Three Lines, describes how to use the ancient art to enrich everyday experience.
“Haiku is a way to plumb the depths of the moment and suspend time,” McGee said. “It’s a way to connect to nature and the season, to capture the stillness of winter.”
December owl
calls into the night
“who cooks for you?”
— Polly Thurston, Doris’ daughter
Before each meeting, the members are given a directive. For this one, it is to write haiku that has a 90-degree cut, or abrupt shift, between images or ideas. It should also use appropriate kigo, or words that evoke the season.
Each member brings five or six haiku written on one page, plus copies for the other members.
losing weight
layers of snow
slip from a branch
— Sarah Zale
Brevity is a hallmark of the form, which according to McGee’s book, does not have to have a certain number of syllables. Haiku is usually written in three lines of 17 syllables or fewer, she says, and combines two images distilled to their essence, usually one short and one longer.
According to a chapter on the form, haiku evolved from terse love notes sent in imperial Japan.
winter hollow
I lie awake
to the moon.
— Carmi Soifer
Modern haiku can be used to evoke deep, shared feeling, as these lines by Soifer, a member of the group who lives in Suquamish, convey.
In her book, however, McGee advocates writing haiku as a spiritual practice that directs attention outward and taps into the sacred.
Focusing on the small details of creation is a kind of prayer, she writes, a way of letting God know we are paying attention.
Snowflakes
frozen to tree-bark
morning silence.
— Doris Thurston
In addition to kigo, haiku poets traditionally draw from utamakura, a collection of place names that evoke feelings common to the community.
McGee surveyed friends in Port Townsend, asking them to identify local places that are sacred to them, that evoke a sense of belonging, awe, wonder, wholeness or healing.
The bridge at Chetzemoka Park and the labyrinth at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which McGee attends, were two places mentioned.
Writing haiku can also reveal the sacred in the mundane.
sun-dappled sky, even
smoke from the paper mill
tinted pink.
– Robert Komishane
McGee says she was introduced to haiku at a workshop led by Carol Light, a Port Townsend writing teacher. It was there that McGee discovered the “haiku moment,” which led to her exploring the form as a spiritual practice.
McGee now leads workshops on writing haiku in response to Scripture and devotes a page on her Web site, intothecourtyard.com, to the form.
In the book, she describes haiku as “low-tech instant messaging.”
“It’s a great way to say more with less,” she said.
A form of haiku is also a group activity in Japan at celebrations, with each person contributing a verse linked to the one that came before.
Doris Thurston’s “Snowflakes,” which is quoted in the book, could connect to the haiku Judi Komishane shared at the meeting.
“Deep freeze” also incorporates the meeting’s directives.
Deep freeze
The newspaper arrives —
insulation.
— Judi Komishane
After each member of the group reads two haikus aloud, twice, members offer their responses or suggestions. But it is the practice, not the product, that is the goal.
Alison Hedlund captures the challenge of seeking the infinite in the ephemeral in the haiku she wrote for the December meeting:
Tossed into the woodstove
these thought-scraps
may yet catch fire.
— Alison Hedlund
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County reporter-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
