Readers' Choices

• Peggy Lyles

•  Favorite Haiku

Most Popular Poets

•  an'ya

•  Ferris Gilli

•  Popular Poets

Editor's Choice

•  Emily Romano

Volume III, Valentine Awards: February, 2001.

Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved by the respective authors.  

            dragonfly . . .
            the tai chi master
            shifts his stance

This verse also won the Editors' The Heron's Nest Award for the November, 2000 Issue. It is brief but the language flows easily, in smooth, natural syntax. It is balanced to speak, to hear, and as it appears on the page. Peggy has used but three nouns and one verb. The pronoun and the article are necessary lubrication. There's no word missing and none that is unnecessary. As TV's Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragnet used to say: “Just the facts, Ma'am.” But there's more here than meets the eye. A complex whole appears to the reader–actions of precision in nature and in the imitation of nature. It is the power of the verse: an harmonious relation of humanity with the natural world. The understanding of this is mirrored by the seeming effortlessness of Peggy's verse.

In his November commentary, Christopher Herold reviewed the beautiful music, the flowing sounds of this construction, and also a little of the history of tai chi, its philosophy and uses. I know little of tai chi beyond movie and television images. One genius of Peggy's haiku is that I don't have to know more to appreciate and share in it. She has united an unusual subject with a common one, dragonflies. They are ubiquitous in the world's tropic and (in at least three seasons) temperate zones. Their breeding cycle is dependent upon fresh water, so they are near many places where humans live.

A sunny summer day, a light westerly breeze, and high mare's-tail clouds–a dragonfly and I share a lakeside dock, each motionless. The insect of this species has the bright body color of his sex: a pale green of intense brilliance shot with black. At rest, each wingtip is set off with a black spot. Periodically this dragonfly zooms away over the lake. Perhaps it is to feed, or is it to follow a female's scent? My winged companion leaves and returns frequently, suddenly. Always he comes back to the exact same place, near the end of a weathered plank; always heading into the breeze. On my face I feel a wind shift. In a trice my neighbor flies up an inch, performs a 180 degree turn, and directly is back on the board with wings again pressed flat. Amazing!

Peggy Lyle's haiku has a wonderful keyword: “master.” The tai chi practitioner is a master of that art. In its environment the dragonfly is also a master. Peggy has pegged it. Exactly!

– Paul MacNeil