Haiku for National Haiku Writing Month – September 2025 First Half

 

National Haiku Writing Month has been founded by the well known haiku poet Michael Dylan Welch. The goal is to write at least one haiku a day. National Haiku Writing Month is in its 14th year. [1] I enjoy writing to the prompts on Facebook. Here are some interesting links: [2]. Our daily writing prompter for September 2025 is Herbert P. Shippey [3], who is doing so for the first time. Thank you very much, Herbert! 

北風捲地白草折，
胡天八月即飛雪。
白雪歌送武判官歸京。
岑參。 
The north wind rolls over the land and breaks the fountain grass.
Snow is already drifting across the barbarian sky in the eighth month.
The Ode of White Snow for Farewell
by Magistrate Wu, who returns to the capital
Cen Can [4]

looking up 
from the tea cup's steam 
to the valley's mists 
~ Mist

bright lichen 
on the ruins of an old tree 
some green, at least 
~ Lichen

ivy vines 
clinging to red brickstones 
we, too 
~ Vines

all the raccoons 
roaming the forests 
good in hiding, too 
~ Raccoon 

green moss 
around the grey old pond 
we're rolling stones 
~ Moss

trees and bushes 
all dressed in hoarfrost 
no wedding, though 
~ Frost Moss

the lotus flower 
emerges from the sauna pond 
as we submerge 
~ Lotus

westerly gale 
howling in the trees 
the hawk still circles, though 
~ Hawk

releasing blueberries 
from their jammed confinement 
good girl! 
~ Berry

no vanilla sauce 
on my strawberry icecream 
already perfect 
~ Berry

picking up 
trilobites from the field 
I walk under water 
~ Fossil

weeds 
still penetrating 
the pine straw 
~ Pine Straw

neither deer nor 
the deer hunter at deer lake 
just caribou 
~ Deer

under the stars 
the road winds on and on 
but we keep sitting  
~ Stars

pine cones 
picked by the squirrels 
like corn on the cob 
~ Pine Cones

still summer? 
the wind asks the birch trees
turning golden 
~ Birch Trees

hiking through 
the boreal wilderness 
leaving a path 
~ Path

 

Links and Annotations:
[1] National Haiku Writing Month https://www.facebook.com/NaHaiWriMo  
[2] „To help with haiku fundamentals, please have a look at "Becoming a Haiku Poet" at https://www.graceguts.com/essays/becoming-a-haiku-poet. Please review the "Haiku Checklist" at https://www.graceguts.com/essays/haiku-checklist. I also recommend to read: https://www.nahaiwrimo.com/why-no-5-7-5. 
[3] https://www.nahaiwrimo.com/meet-the-prompters/herbert-p-shippey
[4] Cen Can (岑參), also pronounced Cen Shen, lived from 715 to 770. He spent about 10 years on the northwest frontier, about 749-759. Later, he was appointed governor of Jiazhou Prefecture (嘉州) by Emperor Suzong (肅宗). Seven of his poems have been included in the anthology 300 Poems of the Tang Dynasty (唐詩三百首). Here are the first two lines of a longer poem. I found a total of four books of his poems in the collection Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty (全唐詩) from 1705.

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