Robinson Crusoe

Leaf 384 – Looking Back

 

I first read Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719) when I was fifteen years old. Nearing fifty, I re-read it again for the first time since then, last year. And, on one particular occasion, I found myself thinking about how much my life had transformed between those two readings. Somehow that context seemed oddly apt.

 

 

At the Immigration Office –

sitting reading

Robinson Crusoe.

 

 

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

Summer Haze

Leaf 383 – Art Inspired

 

This sketch by an unknown British artist (part of an ‘Album of Miscellaneous Etchings’ by various artists, dating from 1637-1824, now in the Tate Gallery), reminds me of the trees at the edge of Harrow Weald, near where I grew up in the UK. It also makes me think of pastoral poems of John Clare.

 

 

Sat

beneath the tree –

summer haze.

 

 

 

Nightingale

Leaf 382 – Art Inspired

 

Joseph Severn - John Keats (c.1821) National Portrait Gallery

Sometime in May 1819, while living in Hampstead, John Keats wrote his ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’ (See also, Leaf 11 and Leaf 12).

 

 

Amid beechen green,

summer sings o’er

the Vale of Health.

 

Long gone,

but echoing still –

light-winged song.

 

Dreams passing on,

soft incense drifts

through the boughs.

 

 

 

This sequence of linked verse was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'nightingale.'

The Hush

Leaf 381 – Reflections

 

Janis Goodman - Heronry (2022)

Whenever I watch a heron, I can’t help feeling that they are creatures who somehow exist outside of time – or, at least, as we experience it. This haiku was written last autumn.

 

 

Adding to the hush

unmoving –

a heron’s eye.

 

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #haikufeels writing prompt: 'hush.'

Cutting the Clouds

Leaf 380 – Looking Back

 

Shiro Takagi - Kites Rising at Dawn (1985)

There’s something magical about kite flying ... It’s a long, long time since I last did it.

 

 

Keen to cut the clouds –

his fingers

let the line unspool.

 

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #haikufeels writing prompt: 'keen.'

Broken Shoji

Leaf 379 – Reflections

 

Toshi Yoshida - From the Ryogoku Bridge

When what was essentially fleeting gets fixed …

 

 

Time stilled –

broken shoji patched

with newsprint.

 

 

 

 Tetsuro Yoshida - Das Japanische Wohnhaus (1935)

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #haikufeels writing prompt: 'repair.'

Kurashiki's Canal

Leaf 378 – Looking Back

 

Katsuyuki Nishijima - Breeze (c.1990)

Whenever we use these cups, we always remember warmly the family trip we made there during a chilly, wet February a few years ago.

 

 

Kurashiki’s canal –

memories burnished

into two bizen-ware cups.

 

 

 

 

This haiku was first published in The Haiku Foundation's "Haiku Dialogue" (4 June 2025)