A Speck of Hopeful Blue

Misako Yoke shares one of her favorite haikus from her book, "Quiet Wonder," and explains how she came up with it.

A three-dimensional trip for the reader

Nick: Let's dive into some haiku. In your book, to enhance your haiku experience, you obviously took and curated a collection of photographs to serve as bridges guiding the reader deeper into the haiku poems you wrote.

So I recommend our readers purchase your book, then they can enjoy reading haiku. But let's share some. So would you like to share several of your poems and give us a taste of what's in your book

Misako: All right, well, each haiku poem is an invitation for readers to create from there, and I set the stage for the readers. This is one of my favorites:

A Speck of Hopeful Blue

In the deep, still woods

A piece of robin's eggshell —

Skyward, new life soars


There I was in a deep wood, and I knew there was a robin's nest, and under the tree, I saw a speck of eggshell that is the sky blue. And that tells this bird belongs to the sky. At least the egg shell tells, I like to think that way. Left the nest, and now it's flying somewhere. And we don't have big snakes in this forest. So I hope they flew.

But that's the beauty of invitation. I was there in a dip, very damp, dark forest floor looking at something sparkling. It was teeny tiny blue., I pick it up, and it's a blue eggshell, very light, so teeny tiny. And I remember, there was a nest, I came here all year in the summer, and the Mother was feeding furiously.

And now it's just an empty nest and eggshell. Now my mind's flying, trying to see the robin. And that's the three-dimensional trip I'm trying to invite my readers to take with me

Nick: Beautiful. It also reminds me of you had to be kind of in the forest, away to see the shell. I imagine you walking through the forest and you see something, and it generated this haiku.

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