In a world gone demented, ripping at the seams, Haiku can be a balm. I like to think of the master of Haiku, Bashō, walking all over Japan in 1689, writing Haiku on his journey, and the book itself becoming a poem about a journey [haibun]. He leaves Edo (modern-day Japan) to begin the journey, taking a boat to the docks of Senju.
The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming. – Matsuo Bāsho, The Narrow Road to the Interior
Basho reaches a post station at Soka, finding himself in Muro-no-yashima a shrine to “Ko-no-hana-sakuya-hime”, the goddess worshipped at the base of Mount Fuji. Later, Basho and his companion Sora lodge at an inn in the Nikko Mountains. A month later, Basho and Sora leave to worship at another shrine at the Nikko Mountains.
Bashō walked all over Japan, writing this travel-ogue with Haiku strewn through it. I had a notion I’d do the same so I booked us to stay in all sorts of Ryōkan in Japan, mostly in lesser known spots but I cannot remember even one of the names of the places I intended to go, except of course Kyoto. That was the year of the Great Plague (apparently) and it got cancelled. The trip, not the Plague. Hence the Black-Out on the Japan trip. I had a whole project planned out to see Shinto temples and Buddhist monasteries but it was not to be that time in Twenty-Twenteee. I can’t even utter the word of the disease that was spreading in the Princess Cruise ship off the coast of Japan, it fills me with so much dread in hind-sight. The mere thought of the lock-up and I have my head in the loo. Well I am here to talk about Haiku, not all of that. When I lived in India before I had my little boy who is now quite big, I wrote Haiku all the time and tried to do it instead of snap-ing with my camera a lot. It got me to sit and be there.
I had a wonderful time in Benares, where I published my Travelogue, Pema and the Yak, with Pilgrims Books, which metamorphosed into That Time I got Lost Looking for Shambhala, when I published the re-write with Seagull Press, long after my father’s horror at the typos in the original book, his red pen corrections, slashed through. WHO was the editor? said my father. Gandalf, I told him. He wore a lot of rings, he’d long white hair, he’d fled English debt in the Nine-teen Seventees in a van, drove through Pakistan, and never went home again. He had a perfect Indian family, beautiful daughters who had moderate dowries, and things like that. He became Editor in Chief in Piglrims Books, Benares, Kathmandu and L.A. His name was Christopher.
Enough of that. I wrote Haiku all the time, and Pi, my Thai monk friend and Rumphet and other Thai Theravadan monks who studied at Benares Hindu University for their PhDeees became the subjects of some of these Haiku. When I returned to Ireland, to Anaverna House (which was to be an Artists’ Residency) it would be no time at all until I would be a mother but I did not know it. My Tibetan partner showed up at Anaverna and did somersaults up and down the Cooley mountains maybe much like Cu-Chulainn, but wearing a Tibetan Chuba[coat-shirt] and probably sporting the same long thick hair as our Cú-Chulann. A wee sprog was the outcome.
I had many Polish friends in Dublin and among them was a chap called Anatoly Kudryavitsky, who was in fact born in Russia to a Ukranian father and half-Irish mother. His mother was from Lublin and possibly ended up in a Stalinesque concentration camp and then settled in Dublin to get away from such dreadful things. Apparently, Anatoly started writing Haiku in Dublin, whereas I started writing them in India. In 2006, on my return from a long haul in India, on the brink of motherhood, Anatoly and I founded the Irish Haiku Society. In 2012, Anatoly did a wonderful job on an Anthology of Haiku called ‘Bamboo Dreams– An Anthology of Haiku Poetry from Ireland’ the first of its kind, published by Doghouse Press, edtited by Anatoly.
To cut a long story short, here are some of my Haiku, written during my most prolific Haiku-time in India– mostly.
Water rushing
through the paddy fields–
Morning soup
– Darjeeling, 2006
With my nose inside
A rhododendron flower
I think of tea–
2006, Dharamsala
Picking blackberries
I catch the pale sun
in my silver bowl
bramen plukken
ik vang de bleke zon
in mijn zilveren schaal
© Siofra O’Donovan, 2006
Honourable Mention in the Samhain International Haiku Competition 2006 and published in Whirligig, Dutch Haiku Journal Eds Max Verhart and Norman Darlington, 2006
footsteps shuffling
Through the temple doors
new moon
Dharamsala, 2006
On the willow path
a purple flower opening
As I hurry home–
–Anaverna, 2006
horses galloping
in the ragged meadows–
mice flee
-Cooly Mountains, 2006
an oak leans over
the river passing –
an acorn drops, unheard
-Anaverna, 2006
geese flying south –
over the mountain creek
moon in a blue sky
-Somewhere, 2006
Entering the valley
The nomad cries- Ekai!
Moon in a blue sky
Nowhere, 2007
Bodies sailing
Down the Ganges river-
Boatman haggles
–Benares, 2006
In the black temple
Offering fresh marigolds
He takes a coin-
Benares, 2006
Walking in the Deer Park
Where the Buddha taught
I feel so hungry–
Sarnath, 2006
Pilgrims coming home
In the cool evening wind
While I make tea
-Darljeeling, 2006
Young monk cycling
To philosophy class at noon
Robes snatch in the wheel
–Benares, 2006 (For Pi)
Red sari flutters
As she waters the paddy field
By the buffaloes
-Uttar Pradesh, 2006
Carrying my baby
Through the pine trees
A monkey watches-
Dharamsala, 2006
Behind the banyan trees
Shimmering-
New snow on the mountain
-Darljeeling, 2006
Washing clothes
In the cold mountain stream
The flash of buttons-
- Uttar Pradesh, 2006
The final one is from a dream about my father, after he died.
Dreaming of my father
Cycling the old country roads
Looking for a way back-
-2009
















Lovely tales remembered and wonderful haiku. 💜
brilliant work