Richard Wright’s Haiku

Concordia Library

Will you be there too?

July 21

1:30 to 3:30

In the afternoon

Haiku is verse in

Five syllables then seven

Then five more again

Originated

In Japan; Wright wrote Haiku

At Dusk in his life

Wright wrote four thousand;

Eight hundred seventeen were

Chosen for his book

His book of Haiku

Is a your library to

Read before you come

If you thought Richard

Just wrote about suffering

The pain of his past

You must see too what

His mind produced in Paris

When he was fifty

Good Haiku contrasts

To make one think more clearly

Of nature and life

Two opposites may

Be joined together as one

Each lights the other

The inanimate

Becomes animated yet

Still remains alone

Humor is made of

Sorrows; Ashanti like Zen

Can speak in Haiku

In Akan faith and

Buddhist, man is not the core

All life is Oneness

Greed and race dissolve

In Haiku waters splashing

In this other world

Our world is too plain:

Three dimensions fade on a

Piece of flat paper

Haiku is other

Wise with visions we do not

See, but often feel

Austere joy surrounds

The sound of a silent flute

We know by its shape

Wright did soon after

He wrote this verse; did he see

A heaven on earth?

Who was our lonely

Native genius who wrote

Such creative songs?

Dr. Jerry Ward

Will be at the library

In Vidalia

To discuss with you

Wright’s use of Haiku to speak

What he envisioned.

In Vidalia

The new library rises

Behind old courthouse

Be there on the third

Saturday to get down with

All your terse-verse friends

Try to craft your own

Haiku before you show up

Will they laugh or cry?

Be sure to write them

Down to read, and if you rap

Yours, it might be cool!

David Dreyer dwells in Adams County; “poet’ from Indiana