HAIKU IN THE

WETLAND

Haiku from the ‘Haiku in the Wetland’ event held on

5 April 2014 at Banksia Street Wetland, O’Connor.

This was a free community event hosted by the CCCR’s

International Poetry Studies Institute, University of

Canberra and ACT Environment and Sustainable

Development Directorate, with facilitators

Sarah St Vincent Welch (Writer) and Edwina Robinson

(Urban Waterways Coordinator).

after you left

circles in the pond

widening

sign language ...

wild grass waving

this way and that

spent bloom ...

head bent he dawdles

to school

Kathy Kituai

suburban excess

nitrogen and phosporous

dangerous ducking

cockatoo tree

every leaf squawking

noisiest snow

perched on a log

damp bark transfers water—

my pink frog bum

P.S. Cottier

Dog barks black

Two syllables, three

Hello? I’m alone

Dead trees leaning left

I suspect the ABC

Of planting bias

Poet on a bench

Discovers cockatoo crap

Questions marks —too close

Jeanette Hunter

Ants playing

Cockatoos flying

Grass Hoppering

Eucalyptus leaves

Ants crawling over rough bark

Water gushing down

Cockatoos

Lovely white native fauna

Disturbing the peace

Ruby Dahl

Tree trunk worm traces

in the wetland puddle bark

an intricate map

O’Connor wetlands’

pleasant Australian bush scents

relaxing my mind

Melita Dahl

a feather floats

a feather floats

among the bubbles

this our world

eucalypt image

imposed on the water

without touch

looking long enough

the invertebrates appear

the downy feather

smells of

duck belly

graffiti screams

at the impassive

wetlands

on the path

an old

pink bow

the half-eaten apple

half-rotted

tugging at my sleeve

a kite of spider threads

eucalypt leaves

grains of pollen

circle

in the lake

tiles the Guides made

covering over with

water and soil

a cocky

turns a full three sixty

at the end of a branch

to avoid

another beaking

listening post

a giant hollow log

is my grave

Owen Bullock

Listen; breathe deeply.

Sweet love song of frog calling

hot tar wet rain smell

distant laughter of a child

gravelled footfall crunch

passing hands brushing mint bush

urban wetland peace

dappled water flow over smooth pebble rock reeds wave

fresh breeze distance

car hum does not intrude peace in suburbia slipstream of

soundless distance

plane against perfect blue sun sparkled sky.

Lorese Vera

two lives lived

two masks, worm etched on my skin

together apart

in fawn slenderness

long fingered pointed up high

until I am swayed

Lynne Bonnano

A publication of the Centre for Creative & Cultural Research and the International Poetry Study Institute (IPSI), University of Canberra.

Editor: Sarah St Vincent WelchPhotography: Dylan Jones Design: Katie Hayne

© 2014 All copyright remains with the artists.