Cloudcatchers’ Ginko # 64, 2022

Thursday 24 February (summer) 2022
Home of Quendryth Young, Alstonville NSW

Present:
Laurel Astle                            Coffs Harbour NSW
Robbie Braithwaite              Tregeagle NSW
Nathalie Buckland                Lismore NSW
Helen Davison                       Lismore NSW
Quendryth Young                 Alstonville NSW
Norma Watts                          Ballina NSW (part-time)
Angela Smith                         Byron Bay (virtual ginko)

Somehow it had been difficult for the Cloudcatchers to settle on a suitable date for our summer ginko this year, but eventually six of us were able to gather on the last Thursday of the season, with another joining in by participating in a ‘virtual ginko’ at that time.

Here on the Far North Coast of NSW the weather has generally been kind this year, with no long stretch of heat, and no bushfire warnings. However the dreaded summer rains descended this week, with rising waterways and flooding, but fortunately none of our members was water-bound.

As we couldn’t spend our time outdoors, we explored again the Guidelines for writing haiku, outlined for us by our patron, John Bird, when the group first gathered in December 2005. We also reviewed the Helpful Hints offered by other modern-day haiku poets, such as Cor Van Heuvel and Scott Mason, and reviewed some terms such as ‘karumi’ ‘sabi’ and ‘wabi’

The constant rain meant that most of our ‘quiet time’ was spent indoors, or on a veranda, peering out, but this aspect of our environment, though challenging, was still stimulating and productive. A number of us remarked on the red wheelbarrow overflowing (…  a William Carlos Williams poem)!

A Round Robin is underway, with a few contributions by members who were unable to join us, but observed a similar silence and wrote from afar.

Quendryth Young