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| Photo: Deb Nystrom/Creative Commons/Flickr |
the silver platter
I didn't polish
I am honored that this haiku was Honorably Mentioned in the Autumn Moon Haiku Contest 2016. As judge Bruce Ross says:
Early prehistoric people have left depictions of the faces of the moon on a piece of wood or on stone, perhaps the beginning of a sense of time. Wild animals such as the elephant and even our pets stare at the moon. We are especially moved by the autumn moon, at the time of dramatic changes to the flora and fauna. In Buddhism, the moon symbolizes enlightenment. In haiku, there is a recognizable opening in a connection with the seasonal world and the human celebrations. The autumn moon is possibly the most dramatic opening to our sensibilities. The selected haiku clearly embody a strong sense of opening.
I wrote this haiku when I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner. I had planned on using a silver tray to serve the meal, but I never got around to polishing it. When the time came, I used it anyway--tarnish and all. It reminded me of the moon with its craters and shadows and it was good for me to let go of my perfectionism and find the beauty in the wabi sabiness of a tarnished tray. Upon further reflection, I realized that the moon itself is the silver platter that I never have to polish, yet there it is shining in the sky most every night. A thing of beauty and imperfect perfection as it waxes and wanes and is obscured by clouds.
This was, indeed, an opening for me. Sometimes haiku can be like that. You think you know what you're writing, but it continues to open further as time goes by, layer by layer, revealing different meanings. In that way, haiku can be like a dream. As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, "a dream is like a letter from home. They are written by ourselves to ourselves, by the part of us that is ever-awake and watching, the part of us that contains wisdom from the past, present, and future."
(Estes, The Beginner's Guide to Dream Interpretation, audio book).
