grey sky— the dog‘s water dish iced over


In the first poem, something significant has obviously happened, but not during the time of the poem. There‘s no action in the poem itself, but a state of being—the weathervane was already pointing to earth, and then the poet sees this. No wonder the poem uses a gerund—indicating a ―present continuous‖ state of being. In the second poem, the action has also taken place beforehand—the dish icing over because of cold temperatures. The state of being is observed later, but nothing actually changes or happens in the poem itself. Sometimes poems with ―static‖ moments have no verbs, which is a useful technique. It‘s worthwhile to think about verb usage (or lack thereof) in haiku to assess whether the poem would be best presented as a static or dynamic moment—and sometimes the static moment is best, although perhaps less common. In contrast, other haiku have action that starts and stops—a ―dynamic‖ moment. In my ―spring breeze‖


poem, the hand pulls. It‘s not an extremely quick moment, but it‘s an action that does start or stop during the time of the poem, thus it‘s dynamic. Consider this poem:


landing swallow— the ship‘s chain dips slightly


Here the action of the bird landing on the ship‘s chain seems to cause it to dip at that moment. Or it could be that the bird is so inconsequentially light that it couldn‘t possibly affect the chain, yet the chain happens to dip at that same moment. Either way, the chain dips, and it‘s a moment that quickly starts and stops. It‘s a little quicker than the ―spring breeze‖ poem. Moments where the action startsa


ndstops may be slightly longer than ones where the action onl or onl immediately starts and stops:


first cold night— the click of your domino as we play by the fire


The moment is indeed very quick, but we are also aware of time before and after the domino‘s click, which may make the entire poem feel longer. Now consider the following two examples, the first where the action starts but does not stop (the conversation is ongoing, but the focus on death has just started), the second where the action was ongoing but then stops in the poem:


dwindling fire— our conversation shifts to death


slushy street— with my index finger I stop the busy signal


By focusing just on the beginningorending of an action, each of these examples may have a sharper or quicker moment than a poem where action startsa


ndstops. Neither variation is more virtuous for haiku than the


other, but it‘s worthwhile being aware of the difference, not just between actions that start and actions that stop, but between an action that e


ihrstarts or stops and one that both startsa t e g ocan improve haiku. ndstops. In the second poem,


the seasonal reference to the slushy street helps to place the poem in time, but note that that does not affect whether the moment is static or dynamic, or whether the moments start or stop, but can make us more aware of time in the poem, which is often true for season words—one of wayski


Sometimes, too, action can occur in the poem, but we see neither the start or stop of that action: 95 ystops. First, the following poem is an example of a quick moment where the action (the domino‘s click)


ystarts


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