We continue our series from Windfall: Australian Haiku, an annual Australian print journal edited by Beverley George and published by Peter Macrow’s Blue Giraffe Press between 2013 and 2022 (ISSN 1839-5449). The pair of poems I have selected to showcase this time involve birds, smoke and wind.
mopoke’s call
blown in on wood smoke
fading Autumn
– Kent Robinson
Windfall 4, 2016
The sound and smell senses in the phrase image of Kent’s poem create an engaging opening that invites reader participation. It suggests a door opened on a chilly night when someone nearby has a wood fire burning. Perhaps the fire is in the narrator’s own house and he’s gone out to get some more wood for it. Wind is implied by blown in, and interestingly the implied wind blows in both smell and sound. All the ‘o’ sounds in the first two lines add to the coherence of the image. The middle line acts as a pivot, allowing readers to also imagine autumn itself blowing into the house. Mopoke is a common name for the southern boobook owl. Its haunting two-note call sounds somewhere between both names. The end line of the poem has the feel of a classic Japanese haiku. It seems the cold weather is only beginning and there will be more wood smoke, and hopefully more mopoke calls, in the weeks and months to come.
a flame robin
flickers in the scrub
smoke wind
– Jan Dobb
Windfall 9, 2021
Jan’s haiku opens with an active vision of a small, red-breasted bird moving through dull scrub. On first reading this is a lovely observation from nature. However, the mood changes with L3, which seems to herald a bushfire threat. Suddenly the flame that flickers has become a portent, a premonition. The alliteration of ‘fl’ in the first two lines helps to build the menacing feel. The wind is not just a wind, but one bringing smoke to the narrator and the tiny bird. And readers know that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Leanne Mumford
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