Haikus 4 U
A new haiku eBook + free downloadable
Whenever I have “poetry block,” my default method for a cure is to write haikus. I think they’re highly underrated, especially in today’s world, where attention spans are short. They’re three little lines that pack a punch and are a heck of a lot of fun to write.
I now forget what I was looking for on a trip into my closet, but I happened upon my thrifted flower press, frozen in time from a long-forgotten project that probably still holds pieces of stems and leaves on tissue paper.
I didn’t think much of it then, but days later, I remembered my mom and I going to Macy’s at the mall for their DIY pressed flower journal class. An assortment of delicate blooms was in vases and on the table, ready to sacrifice their living beauty for our creative amusement.
Pressed flowers are still flowers, of course, but their cheery lights dim a bit, having been squished between blocks of wood or paper weighted down by massive tomes. It’s almost what we risk to achieve by preserving our humanistic beauty standards.
We try to maintain what’s there, and even though we slather and poke and inject our skin in the attempt, time is always moving, always evolving. Maybe it’s a matter of control, a sense of stopping the clock or slowing it down at least.
We try to resist gravity’s hold, but just like pressed flowers, we eventually carry the shells of our former selves, which begs the growing need to appreciate the present moment as we are now. Beauty is too grand an asset to lose trying to work against nature’s plans.
From all this thinking, a digital poetry zine was born, featuring haikus about society’s worry of fleeting beauty and its comparison to our treatment of flowers, a reminder to embrace our natural aesthetic.
It’s available on Etsy as an instant download, which you can purchase here. And because I loathe self-promotion (but how will you know what I’ve made if I don’t tell you?), I also made a free downloadable phone wallpaper featuring one of the haikus for you, my lovely moonflowers.
As always, thank you for being here!
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I remember my first flower press, from early childhood. It was magical and I wish I still had it.