Introducing: PHAIKU
A weekly moment of poetic philosophy in seventeen syllables.
What is a Phaiku?
It’s my own poetic form: a 17-syllable (mostly) meditation inspired by the spirit of haiku but not bound by its traditional seasonal or nature focus. Phaiku blends the concision of haiku with the reflective depth of philosophy—a place where science and wonder meet beneath the stars.
Phaiku is not a tanka or a traditional haiku; it’s a cousin in shape but sails on its own course.
The mind of the scientist, exploring space and matter, is closely related to the mind of the poet, whose task is to explore inner space and the reality of things. Like the scientist the poet is enchanted with an expanding universe of knowledge; but he keeps insisting that the new data must be incorporated into a moral universe, the universe that poetry originally created as myth and for which her must perpetually seek new metaphors.
~ Stanley Kunitz, “A Kind of Order, a Kind of Folly”
Phaiku was sparked by Stanley Kunitz’ quote, a particularly mischievous Muse, and a recent encounter with the term Scifaiku—a reminder that language still has galaxies to explore.
PHAIKU No. 1
Sometimes, the stars speak before I do
stars rhyme like poems
falling sometimes to shower
my mind in cosmos
Stay awhile. Breathe in syllables. Wander out.