Hello and welcome to pea TV, one of the offerings from poetry pea, a haiku and senryu specialist.
My name is Patricia and today I’d like to take you on a short walk around part of the Aegerisee in the kanton of Zug in Switzerland. My family and I were meant to be going snowshoeing, but as you will see from the video, despite this being filmed in February, there was too little snow. We went for a lovely 14km walk instead.
The Aegerisee is an important location in terms of the Swiss confederacy, it was here near the small village of Morgarten, that an important battle was fought in 1315, in which the then Swiss coalition defeated the mighty Habsburg army. You’d never guess that now, it’s a beautiful but sleepy place. We found a lovely restaurant there and had a tasty lunch.
Zug is located in the German speaking part of Switzerland and the word See is translated into English as lake. Switzerland as you might know, is a country of 4 languages and so the lakes are also known as Lago, Lag and lac and my Irish family call them Loughs. I’m interested to know what they are called elsewhere in the non English speaking world, email me, let me know.
Today as we take our little stroll together, I’ll read you a selection of haiku and senryu about lakes from around the world. My thanks to all the poets who sent me their submissions.
Let’s head off then, on the shady side of the Aegerisee and take a walk.
on a frigid dawn
the Sun ascends in concert
with mists from a Lake
Andrew Syor
the ice-rimmed lake
closing in on itself —
dad reviews his will
Shelley Krause
The loon calls across
the misty morning water;
pulling me to home
Tara Steciuk
deer step through frost smoke
forage, taut skin over ribs
ice falling splashes
Jeremy Proehl
lakeshore
i wade
into summer
Roberta Beary – 2007 Penumbra Haiku Contest HM
along the lake edge
reed heads nudge each other
the breeze went that way
Elaine Patricia Morris
pine breeze
carried away
by the waves
Jonathan Roman
cutting the water
with the bow of the canoe
rippled morning pines
Gregory G Finn
Newspaper sailboats
Cannonball tsunamis sink
Yesterday’s headlines
Jennifer Ruth Jackson
placid lake
the sky mirrors
my thoughts
Hemapriya Chellappan
melting mountain peaks
deep in the blue of the lake
reflections remain
Kim Russell
Scrambling after mom,
bright yellow quacking fluff balls ~
Plop! Plop! Plop! First swim.
Barbara Carlson
skipping stones —
the blue sky shivers
grows calm
m shane pruett
lonely forest lake
the splashing and laughter
from childhood days
Isabella Kramer
whitecaps on the lake
the house
gains echoes
Craig Kittner
lake breeze
further I sink
into stillness
Fractled
put away the boat
before the water freezes
on the quiet lake
Jason Gould
mountain lake
I navigate the depths
of her silence
John Hawkhead – (part of a Haiku Foundation dialogue curated by KJ Munro)
mist descending –
at the water’s edge, too late
for the last ferry
Dorothy Burrows
spring thaw
the lake’s rough skin
recovers its softness
D J Kelly – #1 Nourish (January 2018)
in the old
retention pond
new geese
Julie Bloss Kelsey
Loons swoop from the sky
Their plaintive wails resounding
Return home to lake
Thomas Lovett
twilight on the lough
this sense of something
more
Marion Clarke
lake sunset
all the way to the float
and back
Kristen Lindquist
glassy lake
flocks of snow geese
pull up the moon
Debbie Strange – 1st Place, 2017 Autumn Moon Haiku Contest
full moon
across the lake
silverfish
James Young
in the lake
another faraway moon
headman’s daughter
Isabel Caves
full white moon
and a thousand candles
light the lake
Christina Chin
the lifting
of lake fog
after lovemaking
es hebt sich
der Nebel am See
nach dem Liebesakt
Michael Morell Chrysanthemum #14, October 2013
Thank you for your company today. I hope you’ve enjoyed these verses and the little bit of Switzerland I was able to show you. Perhaps you could subscribe to the poetry pea channel and even leave a comment.
If you write haiku and senryu and would like to submit work for the haiku pea podcast, you will find this year’s topics on the website. You could even sign up with your email and receive regular updates from us, including a note about submissions for pea TV.
Goodbye for now and til next time, keep writing.
