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Evening Star

An Ura Shiro renga

by

Carole MacRury (US)
John Carley (GB)
Susan Shand (GB)
Gerald England (GB)
Hortensia Anderson (US)
John W Sexton (Ireland)
Norman Darlington (Ireland) - lead poet

Hokku by William J, Higginson, 1986

This renga was written by the group of poets who gathered in 2005 under the leadership of William J. Higginson, to compose the kasen The Click of Mahjong Tiles http://www.2hweb.net/haikai/renku/kasen/MahjongTiles.html. Upon news of Bill's death in October 2008 it seemed natural for us all to gather in the same spot of cyberspace where we had shared the creative and inspiring experience of writing with Bill three years earlier.

To mark the passing of our friend and teacher, we decided to write to a pre-modern abbreviated form known as Ura Shiro, meaning "back blank" because it approximates the first side of the first sheet of a hyakuin (100-verse renga). The Ura Shiro has eight verses; there were eight members in our group, including Bill, and we have used an old ku of his as hokku.

evening star
almost within
the moon's half-curve /William J. Higginson

the scythe's path
through dried grasses /Carole

father, mother
what became of
all the autumn colour? /John EC

red faced dancers
crowd into the bar /Susan

thrice weekly
through the market hall
an odour of fish /Gerald

the splash of a frog
on every stone /Hortensia

praying, not praying
for a gust to set the
blossom free /Norman

skyward our verse
inscribed on a balloon /John W



Dedicated to the memory of William J. Higginson

Published in Frogpond 32:1, 2009

Hokku by William J. Higginson, from Cor van den Heuvel's Haiku Anthology, 1986


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