HAIKU DIALOGUE – Working with the Soil – working with the soil in a modern context – long list

Working with the Soil with Guest Editor Arvinder Kaur

Human beings share an inextricable relationship with the soil. The word “human” itself is derived from humus, the organic matter, symbolising the intertwined nature of human life and soil. Our connection gets established right at the time of birth, and we share a deep emotional bond with our land. Deriving sustenance from it we take pride in our Mother Earth and swear by its sanctity. Many cultures have deep, spiritual connections with the soil evident in the myths of Earth goddesses and creation stories in folklore where legendary figures are born from it and mysteriously vanish into it. Some of the earliest means of livelihood are connected to the soil. Agriculture and farming have been our mainstay since time immemorial. Soil shapes our food securities and is, therefore, the backbone of economies. An agriculturist, like anyone else, faces lots of challenges. Natural calamities can ruin a whole year’s hard work and sometimes a poor farmer finds it hard to meet the daily needs of his family. The recent floods in northern India have completely altered the nature of the soil which may require scientific intervention not many will be able to afford.

The gardener works with the soil and draws livelihood by nurturing and manicuring. Horticulturists and viticulturists too transform the soil and bring their own science and artistry to it. Potters mould clay to shape their own destinies and perhaps those of others. Earthen lamps light up homes in a most beautiful and aesthetic way. Then there are brick-makers, construction workers, architects, archeologists, environmentalists…the list is endless. Modern-day farming also benefits from the work of soil scientists, engineers and conservationists. Everything reminds us of the earth beneath our feet and when it shakes, it spells disaster.

However, it remains true that the earth is the symbol of quiet patience, receiving whatever is given to it, a fallen leaf or a yet-to-germinate seed, bearing the weight of our lives, our cities and keeping our histories close to its bosom. So, our relationship with the soil is not just professional, it is something much more intimate and deep. It is a relationship of faith and of hope. The farmer who sows the seed knows and hopes the earth will nurture it. The gardener tends the flower bed with a hope that the earth shall respond with an exquisite reward for his hard work. As the potter shapes the clay, he also shapes memories. There is no better teacher for the lesson of decay and renewal than the earth itself. And this lesson is the very basis of our lives. We are born on this earth, and we are bound to return to it.

How do we relate to our soil? In the weeks that follow we shall explore the fundamentals of this relationship.

Below is Arvinder’s selection of poems on the topic of working with the soil in a modern context:

city gardens
under the overpass
these edens

John Pappas
United States

 

first rain
breathing in petrichor
from the fifth floor

Raji Vijayaraghavan
India

 

popping up
as a grape-picker
back-to-the-land

Luciana Moretto
Italy

 

on the hunt
for dinosaur bones . . .
my grandson’s tin shovel

Barrie Levine
Massachusetts, USA

 

drought scarred land
cracks that can’t be fixed
by kintsugi

John Hawkhead
UK

 

wildlife crossing
at last an overpass
above the freeway

Eavonka Ettinger
Long Beach, CA

 

Unearthed treasure –
the pharaoh’s cornflowers
are still blue

Caroline Ridley-Duff
England

 

chestnuts on the soil
next to the skyscraper that
replaced my old school

Urszula Marciniak
Poland

 

condo living
grandpa learns to turn
bonsai soil

Archie G. Carlos
Minnesota

 

soft-lit workshop . . .
in harmony with the wheel
the potter’s hands

Keiko Izawa
Japan

 

curlews
picking through mud
forever chemicals

Tony Williams
Scotland UK

 

corner grocery
all their spinach
canned

Roberta Beach Jacobson
Indianola, IA, USA

 

cultivating seedlings
dirt fills the lines
of the child’s hands

Louise Hopewell
Australia

 

urban sunrise
on the green roof a butterfly
samples a coneflower

Jahnavi Gogoi
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

 

collier’s night —
a streak of light
at tunnel

Jagajit Salam
Imphal India

 

flow of qi –
my mud architect raises
a breathing wall

Vaishnavi Ramaswamy
Chennai, India

 

neelakurinji blossoms
the cosmic healing
of mining scars

R. Suresh Babu
India

 

dirt road
a new crop of ruts
after rain

Cynthia Anderson
Yucca Valley, California

 

a world under glass
I shape the soil
he once tilled

Padma Rajeswari
Mumbai, India

 

trees and plants
take the hit…
expressway

Sathya Venkatesh
Coimbatore

 

heavy rain
the garden soil reveals
plastic soldiers

Marilyn Ward
Lincolnshire UK

 

post dig
a taste of the river
beneath his nails

Robert Kingston
Chelmsford, United Kingdom

 

turning the field
on its head—
vertical farming

thomas david
United Kingdom

 

another winter
my grandpa’s new crop
of Vo-Ag students

Richard Straw
Cary, North Carolina

 

evicted homes
a burst of cosmos
from the debris

Milan Rajkumar
Imphal, India

 

mustard flowers
the golden glow
of virtuous farming

Marie Derley
Ath, Belgium

 

solstice sun
returning to the forest
he designed

Zahra Mughis
Lahore, Pakistan

 

breaking new ground
when the architect’s plan moves
from paper to soil

Jenny Shepherd
London, United Kingdom

 

skyline spikes
cherry blossoms return
sooner and smaller

Daya Bhat
India

 

standing alone –
an organic farmer
in the dell

Valentina Ranaldi-Adams
Fairlawn, Ohio USA

 

vertical garden
morning glories climb
balcony to balcony

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama

 

summer’s end
a combine under
cooling towers

Lev Hart
Calgary, Canada

 

after grading
a grasshopper pauses
at the edge

Nalini Shetty
Mumbai, India

 

giant earthworms
in the seed hole
transplanting

Anthony Rabang
Philippines

 

summer weeding –
my uncle’s tractor
among the vineyards

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

skyscrapers –
on the asphalt
chalk trees

Dan C. Iulian
Romania

 

silent spring . . .
tucking in terrarium
fragrance of the earth

Monica Kakkar
India

 

green space renewal
a rose garden
under concrete

Susan Farner
USA

 

blurry sunset
a harvester stirs up dust
across cotton fields

John Zheng
Mississippi

 

demolition drive—
the city takes away
what it provides

Mona Bedi
Delhi, India

 

creaking of ghosts –
in the silent plain
wind turbines

Nazarena Rampini
Italy

 

little balcony —
the Mediterranean
in three pots

Sanjana Zorinc
Croatia

 

granpa’s roses
small hands learning
to break neemcakes

Anju Kishore
Bengaluru, India

 

spring breeze
I put down my tools
and breathe

Anne Fox
Broomes Island, MD USA

 

deep plowing –
Thracian treasures
shine in the ground

Minko Tanev
Bulgaria

 

home improvement
half of the lawn
becoming flower beds

Bryan Rickert
Belleville, Illinois

 

new soil
how tender under my fingers
on mom’s tomb

Maya Daneva
The Netherlands

 

this human chain
guarding ancient trees
eco-warriors

Annie Wilson
Shropshire, UK

 

earth day festival
the daffodil path
opens a wishlist

Lori Kiefer
UK

 

soil data—
the violets
in binary

Hynek Koziol
Czech Republic

 

tomato harvest
on the space station
Earth day

Kathabela Wilson
USA

 

potter’s wheel
a robot leaves
its clawprint

Orense Nicod
Paris, France

 

the rain-wet soil
wafting of petrichor
his aftershave

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera, California

 

butterfly garden—
the metamorphosis of
childhood

Jonathan English
Washington, DC

 

harvesting wood blewits
the pocket guide
misprint

Ronald Scully
Burien WA

 

compost heat my wrists smelling of rain

C.X. Turner
U.K.

 

for now I rest
and put down my pen
fallow ground

Margaret Tau
New Bern, North Carolina

 

free-lunch coupons
the bankrupt farmer
extends a hand

Sumitra Kumar
India

 

each shelf
full of biographies—
vertical farming

Martina Matijević
Vidovci, Croatia

Join us next week for Arvinder’s commentary on additional poems…

Bios:

Guest Editor Arvinder Kaur, author, translator and an award-winning poet, specializes in English literature and Media Studies. She was one of the founding editors of the bilingual haiku journal Wah. She has been a guest editor at Triveni, Failed Haiku and recently at The Haiku Foundation’s Haiku Dialogue. Her haiku have appeared in several national and international journals. She is the author of four books of micropoetry, two of which are bilingual where she has translated her own work into vernacular. Her books have been very well received in India and abroad. She lives in Chandigarh, India with her family.

Assistant Editor Lafcadio, a former teacher, now works from home writing, editing and proofreading study guides for nursing textbooks. She lives in Tennessee. She has written poetry for a long time but a couple of years ago fell in love with Japanese micropoetry and hasn’t looked back. Lafcadio has been published in a number of journals and anthologies. She writes under the nom de plume of Lafcadio because nom de plume is so fun to say. You can read her poems on Twitter (X) @lafcadiopoetry or BlueSky @lafcadiobsky.

Assistant Editor Vandana Parashar is an associate editor of haikuKATHA and one of the editors of Poetry Pea and #FemkuMag. Her debut e-chapbook, I Am, was published by Title IX Press (now Moth Orchid Press) in 2019 and her second chapbook Alone, I Am Not, was published by Velvet Dusk Publishing in April 2022.

Lori Zajkowski is the Post Manager for Haiku Dialogue. She lives in New York City and enjoys reading and writing haiku.

Managing Editor Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She served as Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada for ten years, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019). Find her at: kjmunro1560.wordpress.com.

Portrait by Laurel Parry

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Haiku Dialogue offers a triweekly prompt for practicing your haiku. Posts appear each Wednesday with a prompt or a selection of poems from a previous week.