The Breton Night (1994)

Loose Leaves – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - On the Steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London (1995)

Some people say that nostalgia is a disease, but I disagree. I’m sure a lot of poets would feel the same. There is certainly a danger in falling prey to nostalgia, especially if one feels the past is preferable to the present. Personally, I don’t feel that way. There were undoubtedly discontents in the past, just the same as there are discontents now in the present – but we tend to forget this. As the poet, Thom Gunn, put it: “(Aware, gently, of what the past / becomes, golden in ruin.)”*, we tend to burnish our memories and our ‘what might have beens.’ – Suffice to say, the following poem was written a long time ago.

 

 

 

THE BRETON NIGHT (1994)

 

I walk these silent streets:

 

Still, the snow on the banks

of the rivers in Berlin remain.

 

The pages of poetry drift continually

beneath the surface.

Though you do not see.

 

You asked me to dance with you

beneath the bright light of the

midnight moon.

 

A dance before we said goodbye,

and then you turned away.

 

With every thought that follows now.

 

I clasp each memory I have of you,

and treasure it deep inside, as though it were

a last and final embrace.

 

And each time I turn, I see you.

 

You come to me, through this

your Breton Night.

 

Smiling – I see. Smiling – at me.

 

My heart meditates each moment,

unchanging.

 

My thoughts of only you, and the

cherished dream.

 

Letters are not enough, no stamps

to bear: Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité.

 

I look into my sky and see the same,

a silvered moon of memory,

set high in this – your Breton Night.

 

Counting the days, until you return.

 

 

1994.                  

 

 

Man Ray - 'Mother of Pearl Face and Ebony Mask', or 'Kiki with African Mask' (1926)

*from: “A Drive to Los Alamos.” (Thom Gunn, ‘The Passages of Joy’, 1982).

Leaf  297

Last Lamp

Leaf 400 – Looking Back

 

M.C. Escher - Never Think Before You Act (1921)

Closing the ledger of ‘400 Leaves’ …

 

 

Last desk lamp

in the library

winks out.

 

 

 

Sound of Cicadas

Leaf 399 – Looking Back

 

Kobayashi Kiyochika - Looking at Evening Lights (c.1930s)

This is a haiku which I wrote during my first visit to Japan in 2003, while I was staying at a hotel (which no longer exists) overlooking Shinobazu Pond.

 

 

Wandering back to the hotel –

the sound of cicadas

in the warm night.

 

 

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Shinobazu Pond in Ueno (1939)

Whorl

Leaf 398 – Looking Forward

 

As the ‘400 Leaves’  project draws to a close, thoughts start to turn to new forms and rejuvenation …

 

 

Fur-flecked whorl

of a fern

waiting to unfurl.

 

 

 

Photograph Credits: Noel Nesme & Dom Sch-veg-man / Pexels

Dust Bathing

Leaf 397 – Looking Back

 

Tatsufumi Kobayashi - Passeri

When I was a child, we had an old, neglected strawberry patch beneath two very tall conifer trees in our back garden. It was mainly used by the sparrows in the summer, and I remember I always liked to see the little hollows which they created in the hard-baked earth.

 

 

Sparrows

dust bathing

in the old strawberry patch.

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'berry' & 'sparrow.'

Ripples

Leaf 396 – Reflections

 

Robin Maria Pedrero - Cattails And Dragonflies

I have always been fascinated by dragonflies …

 

 

Ripples on water –

two dragonflies

waltzing with the wind.

 

 

 

Sound of Leaves

Leaf 395 – Looking Back

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Miyajima in the Rain (c.1930s)

This poem recalls a visit to Miyajima, on a wet and misty, windless day in February 2024. See also, Leaf 312.

 

 

Sound of leaves

slow pattering

precipitation.

 

 

 

Her Mirror

Leaf 394 – Reflections

 

Bert Stern - Marilyn Monroe with a Nikon Camera (1962)

I’ve tried to place this poem in several different haiku magazines, but it’s always been rejected. I wonder if the reason for this is because it reads differently to others to how I imagine it? – In my mind’s eye it is very much linked to the poem I posted in Leaf 278, with echoes of Gloria Swanson saying “We had faces!” in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950).

 

 

Polishing

the tarnished silver

of her mirror.

 

 

Empty Road

Leaf 393 – Reflections

 

Janet Brooke - Canary Wharf from Under the Flyover

Many of my fondest memories of travel are the starts from home amid the optimism of early morning.

 

 

White mist – 

a golden sun rising

over the empty road.

 

 

Out of this World

Leaf 392 – Reflections

 

Fortunino Matania - The Moon Viewed from Space
(Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Pirates of Venus, c.1932)

This poem was inspired by a love of classic sci-fi …

 

 

Sat reading

on her bunk –

out of this world.

 

 

 

Cool Spoons

Leaf 391 – Looking Back

 

Looking back on life, I sometimes find a strange sort of contentment in not knowing …

 

 

COOL SPOONS

 

A few photographs and old postcards –

two cigarettes, smouldering 

memories of younger days:

 

Kettle clicks –

tinkling two mugs

in the kitchen.

 

Tight-laced lovers laugh together –

drinking tea, eating biscuits,

in bed.

 

My shabby old flat

on the High Street –

long since flattened and gone.

 

Half-a-lifetime:

the mystery

of who you were,

and,

who you went on to be?

 

 

Photograph Credit: IMDb

Mountain Rain

Leaf 390 – Looking Back

 

Tokuriki Tomikichiro - Moon and Bamboo (1970)

I think this poem was originally written around 2003-2004, while I was walking the old Tōkaidō in Hakone (see, Leaf 62).

 

 

Rattling the bamboo –

a short drift of

mountain rain.

 

 

English Riviera

Leaf 389 – Reflections

 

Michael Praed - Traditional Fishing Craft in the Creek

This poem captures a view which I’ve often seen from the window of trains when travelling down to Penzance in Cornwall.

 

 

English Riviera –

tarped dinghies

and drizzle.

 

 

 

This haiku was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'drizzle.'

Rainless Night

Leaf 388 – Reflections

 

Kawase Hasui - Moon over the Arakawa River, Akabane (1929)

A poem written around this time last year in Tokyo.

 

 

Thunder rolling

through –

rainless night.

 

 

 

Salt & Iron

Leaf 387 – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - Moorings, Newlyn (1999)

This is another of my poems about the fishing port of Newlyn in Cornwall, where I spent most of my summer’s while growing up.

 

 

Scent of salty air

and corroding iron –

fishing boats at rest.

 

 

 

Above the Rooftops

Leaf 386 – Reflections

 

Ueno Keisei Juraku Building (c.1950s)

I am a big fan of the railways in Japan, but the ‘Bullet Train’ really is in a league of its own.

 

 

Gliding above the rooftops

– the Shinkansen

leaving the city.

 

 

 

Evening Air

Leaf 385 – Looking Back

 

Margaret Preston - Sydney Heads (1925)

This poem pairs neatly with Leaf 276, which is also about the years when I was lucky enough to live right by the River Thames.

 

 

Warm evening air

on the water –

low tide.

 

 

 

Robinson Crusoe

Leaf 384 – Looking Back

 

I first read Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’ (1719) when I was fifteen years old. Nearing fifty last year, I re-read it again for a second time. And, on one particular occasion while doing so, 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 the 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)

Carbon Copy

Leaf 377 – Reflections

 

Leonid Pasternak - Boris Pasternak Writing (1919)

White. Yellow. Pink. Green. [Indigo]

 

 

Carbon copy –

my name fading

in triplicate.

 

 

 

 

Silver Strand

Leaf 376 – Reflections

 

Sarah Ross Thompson - Tall Shadows

Beauty is (very definitely) in the eye of the beholder.

 

 

Keeping quiet –

a single silver strand

seen in your hair.