Haiku Beginnings
Poems written in 1980 at age 11 and in 2025 at age, well...old-er. Revealing: the keeping of secrets.
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Today’s Audio—
Hello all and sundry,
Well, HELLO! Hello to June as well! This is a special month: will be one year on Substack and writing the To Be Livin’ Poetry and Prose newsletter. The o-fficial day is the 8th, so I am feeling those CAN-YOU-BELIEVE-IT tingles!
Come on in and let’s have a visit. I’m grabbing my sweet green tea, of course, and a snack: cup of trail mix and some fresh berries. Today, I wanted to take you to some original-original writing and some new; all of them are Haiku.
The original-originals are a dug-up discovery, really an unburying, from my youth; the tender age of 11, to be exact. You’ll understand what I mean by ‘an unburying’ when I tell you that I came to writing Haiku while being in therapy. Yes, therapy. One does need it, if, from the ages of 9 to 11, you were violated in ways no child should be, and were keeping the secret for a man who was supposed to be…..better. Even in my writing, I was keeping secret the depths of depravity and dysfunction that penetrated my life and deprived me of a world which should have been viewed through a lens of purity and innocence, a should have been for every child’s experience.
Still…I kept secrets. For me, those secrets of sacrilege, the volumes of unwritten, unspoken history, not just mine, which fill the locked rooms within the souls of millions, because sin and the evils that stir it have existed from the beginning of humanity, were firm grip held. Not to protect myself, but to protect…well, everyone else, and not just the innocent. Isn’t that what one is supposed to do? Isn’t that the needed sacrifice? Isn’t that an unnegotiable requirement of love?
Well, NO. Turns out that THAT belief is quite an unnatural toxicity to be inhaled only when secret keeping is desired to cover up wrongs, protect the guilty, avoid accountability, disregard punishment, push on young minds to think and believe that loyalty is love, and love is closing your eyes…to that, the answer is absolute: NO! Unfortunately, due to the span of time, though thankfully, because it finally arrived, it is the answer I found and recognized with the lived wisdom of age, and the revealing of what IS a normal, healthy expression of loving someone. It most assuredly has nothing to do with secret keeping.
Quite sadly, from 9 to 11, and quite frankly years beyond, I was a loyalist to many, those deserving and those who didn’t deserve a drop. What IS fortunate and the blessing, yes, there is one, is that this ideology of secret-keeping-and-loyalty-is-love nonsense, which came from these lived experiences, will not be passed on by me. By putting that cursed lie in the ground, just maybe someone else will not only arrive to a NO answer, better yet, they will avoid its poisoned whisper altogether. Oh, I pray.
Not so surprisingly, I wrote my Haiku during that time in my life with only little hints suggesting my trauma. I can see it clearly in and between the lines, yet others may see only simple poems of an 11 year old. Still, this was my beginning as a poet, a writer: it was therapy. Greater, it was my saving grace.
Honestly, all of my work was and still is therapy. For every hard lived experience, these words have gotten me through. Gotten. Me. Through. With any shattering, each jagged piece would become a letter, a word, a sentence, a rhyme, a rhythm to becoming whole again, to finding myself and revealing me.
With that, may you have some insight into my writing; an understanding of what you’ve already read and a peak into what will come in future posts. It’s all therapy, it’s my soul’s prayers, it’s the heart of me, my loves.
Now, let’s have a look through Haiku…
Haiku—1980
Montana World Montana is the best. There are farming lands and children. Good friends from all around. My Friends Friends treat you very good. They invite you overnight. Sometimes, they can be shy. Summer The trees are getting green. Spring is almost over now. Harvest will begin. Summer Seeing the old fence, Farm houses and barns, Seem to make me happy. The Dry Land It's hot outside. There is not much wild life. I wish there were horses. The Great Sunset Yellow, orange, pink. These are all beautiful colors. At least, I know that. The Sun's Rays The rays from the sun; Oh, how they glimmer brightly. They make the world happy. Wendy S. -September 16, 1980
Now, the recent poems…in reflection: revealing, the keeping of secrets.
Haiku—2025
I Darkness loves dancing On bones of the wee living. Love's light lifts above. II Breath of love - gentle, Tenderly cares for wounded. Was not about YOU. III Secrets bury deep Under roots of grandest trees. Upward grows greatness. IV Tree tops wave their sing. Sway to wind's song, rejoicing. Love comes on a breeze. V Dig deep, earth of rib. The place of us - origin. Feet on ground feels sound. VI In the sun, ray's hope. Healing through the light does come. Innocence, yes, revived, yes. VII To SHOUT truth to Sky. Breeze carries on a bird's wing. Heard plea. Answer: Peace. W. Gray -2025
There is a spaciousness revealed, a lighter than air rising, which comes when the burden of secrets and trauma have been released, when one’s truth gets told.
I often wonder: if there was more of this happening, in and from our fellow humans, would they live and be…..better?
It is possible. With God, all things are possible.
Thanks so much for being here, for being on this journey with me.
Always, holding hope. Love Y’all!
Many blessings and MUCH LOVE,
~Wendy💜
i am planning a cross country trip through Utah, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. you mentioned Montana in your haiku. what would you recommend i experience there?
Wendy, first…can’t believe it’s been a year already! So proud of you and CONGRATULATIONS my friend!!
Second, would that I could hug that little girl. Thank you for giving her a voice. I know that wasn’t an easy post, but I pray that someone else reads it and begins their healing journey as a result. Love you to pieces!