My Mom Writes Haiku

by Hannah Joy Elliott

My mom writes haiku

My mom publishes haiku

My mom teaches haiku

My mom loves Haiku

I hate haiku

It’s so foreign to me. I don’t even think of it as poetry,

but some art of another age.

Like passages from the bible.

Ideas from a past and place so distant I will never relate.

Artistic expressions of a world I have never seen.

My poetry flows out of me in such a torrent of words.

Emotions like tidal waves that knock everything down.

When I write it’s to bleed onto the page instead of out

of my arm.

What I want to express will never be small enough to fit

in 17 syllables.

I need so many words to share

the wonder of the world, the pain of loss, the joy of love.

What I feel could never be contained in such a

diminutive form.

I rarely write about nature, and I try to be understood in

every line not only the last.

But Poetry has always been a way we can share so

for my mom I’ll try

Gateway to summer

New growth nature’s awakening

This year he’s still gone

Wow

I just took my Biggest emotion and made it haiku.

From Reluctant Mermaids: 2025 Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology, edited by Kathabela Wilson (Pasadena, California: Southern California Haiku Study Group, 2025, pages x–xi).