And yet

A haiku, at first it seems the merest of gifts.

17 syllables.  Three lines. One sustaining image.

Jot one down on the corner of a notebook page, fold it twice and tuck it in your pocket

and it’s smaller and lighter than the comic in a piece of bubble gum.  

Often, though, these pocket poems and their three lines have burrowed their way inside and

stayed.  I think about a haiku by Issa, translated by Robert Hass.

The world of dew

Is the world of dew,

            And yet, and yet—

So slight, so full. There's an ache that lives there and a hope too. 

Issa gives us miles to walk around in the last line and much to mull over. We can walk and notice the dew and the whole of the world.  

 “And yet, and yet--"    

                                                                                      ~ Poetry on Wednesdays