My haiku “whale vertebrae” won a Touchstone Award for Individual Poems in 2016, from the Haiku Foundation.

whale vertebrae
drifting from one god
to another

(first printed in A Hundred Gourds 5.3)

Here is commentary on this haiku from the panelists from the Haiku Foundation:

“This haiku brings the sense of a timelessness of all things in our own great human journey between birth and death. A lot to imply in eight carefully crafted words but what an impact they have. They evoke something greater in our understanding and the search for the true self. Every time I read this haiku I find more places to travel and discover the subtleties that tantalize me as a reader. Nothing is explained, only suggested, and the reader can find what it means to them by going deeper.”

“The magnificence of the life force expressed in a whale, and the universal and critical message that from one god to another, no matter who we worship or where we’re from, there is only one Truth. And just as the dead whale has drifted across the sea, so too might we at times feel lost, drifting from one religious or spiritual path to another, hoping to find healing. With racism and refugees much on our minds today, this poem offers the hope of healing. And in the echo of the repetitive r’s and o’s, the power of this spare haiku reverberates with sound.”

———————————-

For more information, and to look at other winners, please visit: https://www.thehaikufoundation.org/2017/04/30/commentaries-for-the-2016-touchstone-awards/