Laura Hershey: Writer, Poet, Activist, Consultant Rotating Header Image

camping

Three Haiku from My Recent Camping Trip

I’m not sure whether the plural of haiku is “haiku” or “haikus.” Poetry experts, let me know what you think.

I do know, however, that supposedly “minor” language questions can actually be significant in terms of conveying information. For example, when I was planning our camping trip last week, I checked the web page for Golden Gate Canyon State Park, where we had reserved a yurt for our party of six, including three wheelchair users. The description read, “The yurts accommodate a maximum of six people. They have two bunk beds, one twin-size and one double-size…” I took that to mean that there were six beds total, but in fact there are four, and they are ALL bunk beds — which are, to say the least, quite a challenge for people who need assistance to get into bed, change clothes, etc. A lot of heads got bumped.

Well, I guess there are two ways to read the sentence above, but I think that changing the comma ( ,) after “bunk beds” to a colon ( : ) would have been a big help.

Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time in that beautiful, partly accessible, occasionally peaceful environment. We were a group of family members both related and chosen, and friends who are essentially family too.

My time there inspired a few short poems, the haiku(s?) below.

Tall pines loom over
loving thoughtless laughter,
lean into gray dusk.

Campfire eats logs, air,
matches, and thoughts. It feeds us
heat for meat and words.

Late night, our yurt yawns
us into its round belly,
to rest for travel.

GoldenGateStateParkAug2009 048