EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration

Earthrise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2025

Welcome to the world’s largest annual collaborative poem.

As we often have in the past, this year we take our cue from The United Nations Year Designation. 2025 is designated the International Year of Cooperatives, the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, the International Year of Peace and Trust (and we wish them well with all these directives), and, finally, the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. It is this last topic we will explore for our seed poem for this year’s Earthrise Rolling Haiku Collaboration.

In researching glacier poems for this purpose, we are once again indebted to Charles Trumbull and his incomparable Haiku Database. I thought I’d share a couple of these poems, to whet your appetites, before proceeding to the seed poem. Many of these attempt simply to evoke the glacier and its milieu — its grandeur, its silence, its coloration.
in the crevice
of a receding glacier
edelweiss
— Bruce H. Feingold. Old Enough (2016).

 

great glacier
not a speck mixed
evenly blue
— Hirahata Seitō. Haiku International 1992.
A surprising discovery is how many contemporary Japanese poets have tried their hands at glacier haiku — might there have been a ginko?
Howling, “OH!”
old man glacier greets
the sun again
— Takaha Shugyō. One Year of Haiku (1989).

 

Fills up Bow Lake,
gushes out as Bow River,
the glacier thaw
— Tōta Kaneko. Frogpond Supplement 1997.
Many have used the glacier as a symbol of inexorable if excruciatingly slow development.
calving glacier
the pace
of what reshapes us
— Ben Gaa. One Note Moon (2023).
or worse
cognitive slippage
half the grand glacier
already in the bay
— George Swede. Frogpond 44:1.
More recently, poets have used glaciers as metonymy for global climate change.
climate change
the slippery slope
of a glacier
— Gregory Longenecker. Tinywords 20:1.

 

being told
how things are —
glacier debris
— Sandra Simpson. Notes from the Gean 1:3.
And a couple poems have found their way into anthologies and so have earned a life beyond their own times, though we all must hope that the glaciers will far outlive these efforts on their behalf.
retreating glacier —
how long since we’ve heard
the black wolf’s song
— Billie Wilson. Modern Haiku 38:1.

 

a journey ends
where the glacier melted
a field of stones
— Jane Reichhold. A Dictionary of Haiku (1992).

And so, at last, our seed poem:

over the blue glacier
where the god sleeps:
a cloud peak
— Senda Yôko. Modern Haiku 37:1.

Please add your poem(s) in the Reply Box below, ideally at dawn at your location, but any time that you are able. The timeline for this begins at 12:01 A.M. on April 17 at the International Date Line (which is why it seems to have started the day before, for many of us). Your poem(s) may respond to the “seed” poem, or to any of the posted poems and/or comments, and you can even start a new thread. You may participate as often as you like. All we ask is that you respond to the theme at hand.

Enjoy!

Comments (202)

    1. all this shifting ice
      I wonder how I became
      yet another shape
       
      Alan Summers

      .
      Variation on this one:

      all this drifting snow
      I wonder how I became
      yet another shape
      Alan Summers
      Best of Mainichi 2014

  8. .
    was it dark inside wolf

    Alan Summers
    haikai/monostich series “Mistero una volte”
    Weird Laburnum (November 2019) ed. Michael O’Brien

    .

    wolf rain my taste maps a cloud

    Alan Summers
    otata 11 (November 2016) ed. John Martone

    .

    timber wolf—
    the cold moon
    concertinas

    Alan Summers
    Asahi shimbun (Japan, December 2021)

    .

    silver bullet(s) where wolf whither goest thou?

    Alan Summers
    from three so1oku
    proletaria politics philosophy phenomena
    ed. Elancharan Gunasekaran (December 2019)

    .

    icy bicycles shine on diamond Syd Barrett

    Alan Summers
    Tribute to Syd

    .

    1. Happy IHPD, Alan

      Yours prompted me to:

      1/ share a recast:

      edelweiss . . .
      escaping tyranny’s
      bluer uniforms

      2/ and join you for dessert:

      Too much gelato –
      the glacial onset
      of ketoacidosis

      Thawing out
      insulating with
      fast-acting insulin

      Cheers 🍨

      Michael

  17. geography class —
    a cut picture of glacier
    in deep waters

    glacier shift
    the neighborhood
    now quiet and chill

    Lakshmi Iyer, India

  18. April 17th 2025
    Serendipity : Poetic Coincidence
    IHPD on Maundy Thursday

    📖. 🖊️ 🎙️

    Last Supper:
    relishing the fresh produce –
    haiku on ice

    🍇 🍓 🥗 🐑 🍆 🧀 🍇

    Haiku
    structured
    upon the triduum

    _____

    “It is done” – John 19:30

    https://ibpc.webdelsol.com/poems/tetelestai

  20. Happy International Haiku Poetry Day 2025 to us all –

    I have been reading & enjoying this year’s collaboration in progress since yesterday – now adding my contribution here the sunrise after –

    The sun
    power-lifting the day
    over the glacial flat line

    ___

    At the apex
    of the iceberg tip –
    the haiku-poem

    ___

    Iceberg –
    the floating world
    in deep freeze

    —

    The calved iceberg,
    drifted; He leaves the fold
    for each & every one

    ___

    Calving:
    shedding
    the shroud

    ___

  21. melting glaciers,
    the great lakes, flooded homes …
    cause and mixed effect

  22. lime quarter
    an glacier collapses
    over jazz

    Alan Summers

    .

    A play on the original:

    lime quarter
    an ice cube collapses
    over jazz

    Alan Summers
    First publication: Presence No.13  (2001)

    BroadcastLab, Bath Spa University (Haiku poet-in-residence 2006 – 2007)

  23. still in sepia . . .
    gone with the glacier
    wild waterfall

    All summer season word, kigo: wild waterfall, bakufu 瀑布 (ばくふ) [World Kigo Database]

    *Dedicated to Anderson Glacier, in Olympic National Park, Washington, which, in 2015, became the first U.S. glacier to be declared dead.

  30. mother of all glaciers towers
    over the george washington bridge
    my pleistocene queen

    rob barkan

  31. when the ice sculptor
    hits rock bottom
    that’s global warming

    wendy c. bialek

  32. glistening with glaciers
    lush without landfills . . .
    first dream of the year

    New Year season word, kigo: first dream of the year, first dream, hatsu yume 初夢 [World Kigo Database]

  33. shooting stars . . .
    graveyard of glaciers
    races against time

    All autumn season word, kigo: shooting star, nagareboshi 流れ星 (ながれぼし) [World Kigo Database]

    *Dedicated to Iceland’s Okjökull, the first glacier to be officially declared dead as a result of human-caused climate change.
    https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/1st-glacier-declared-dead-from-climate-change-seen-in-before-and-after-images-earth-from-space

    and

    *A glacier graveyard in our graveyard of glaciers.
    https://unric.org/en/as-iceland-prepares-to-lose-its-ice-it-introduces-the-first-graveyard-of-glaciers/

  37. slippery slope . . .
    absence of autumn colors
    gurgling glaciers

    Late autumn season word, kigo: the absence of autumn colors, momiji nu, momijinu もみじぬ [World Kigo Database]

  38. red vermilion summer—
    all sherbet and sorbet
    grandma’s glacier

    All summer season word, kigo: red vermilion summer, shuuka 朱夏 (しゅか)
    [World Kigo Database]

  42. fiery finale . . .
    cloud peaks circle
    Cirque of the Towers

    All summer season word, kigo: cloud peaks, minegumo 峰雲

    *Cirque of the Towers is a glacial basin high in the Wind River Range, in Wyoming, USA. It is surrounded on three sides by a curving line of 12,000 foot granite peaks. Etymology; Borrowed from French cirque (“circular arena; cirque”), from Latin circus (“circle, ring”), from Ancient Greek κίρκος (kírkos, “circle, ring; racecourse, circus”),
    https://www.americansouthwest.net/wyoming/wind-river-range/cirque-of-the-towers.html

  44. heavenly river . . .
    neck and neck with hairlines
    Gaṅgotrī glacier

    Early autumn season word, kigo: heavenly river, river of heaven (Milky Way), amanogawa, ama no kawa 天の川 (あまのかわ) [World Kigo Database]

    *According to legends, the holy Ganges descended from heaven at Gaṅgotrī glacier in the Himālayās. Known as the Gaṅgā or Mother Gaṅgā, it is the most sacred river in Hinduism. The Milky Way at Gaṅgotrī is a night nonpareil!
    https://uttarakhandtourism.gov.in/destination/gangotri

    *Over the last 25 years, Gaṅgotrī glacier has retreated more than 850 meters, with a recession of 76 meters from 1996 to 1999 alone.
    https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/4594/retreat-of-the-gangotri-glacier

  49. heat wave . . .
    crying out loud
    our cryosphere

    All summer season word, kigo 季語: heat (of the weather), feeling hot, hotness, atsusa 暑さ(あつさ) [World Kigo Database]

    *Cryosphere includes the components of the Earth System at and below the land and ocean surface that are frozen, including snow cover, glaciers, ice sheets, ice shelves, icebergs, sea ice, lake ice, river ice, permafrost, and seasonally frozen ground, and solid precipitation. Etymology: Greek word ‘kryos’ for frost or ice cold.
    https://wmo.int/topics/cryosphere

  56. welcoming the sun—
    crown of the continent
    Glacier National Park

    Mid-spring season word, kigo: welcoming the sun, hi mukae, himukae 日迎え (ひむかえ) *It means on spring equinox in the morning turning east “welcoming the sun.” [World Kigo Database]

    *Glacier National Park, crown of the continent, is warming at nearly two times the global average and the impacts are already being felt by park visitors. Fire and ice show some of the biggest changes.
    https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm

  70. melting glacier …
    Papa’s stories fade
    with each summer
    – THF, Haiku Dialogue, 12th March 2025

    1. Blue-Eyed Lutino Cockatiels

      the Blue Ice cocktail
      somehow orange
      its compressed snow
      remembers its glacial brothers
      and sisters
      while air bubbles
      squeeze
      and jostle
      I lay my sleeping god
      to rest

      HAIBUN by Alan Summers

  77. Greenland squabbles
    God looks down
    on his shrinking world

    (inspired by the seed poem)

  91. glacier ice
    my child comes across
    blue gradient

    – Billy Antonio
    Laoac, Philippines

  95. a melt-water shaft
    pierces the alpine glacier
    their divorce final

    Geppo, Vol XLVII, 2020

  98. walking upstream
    to reach the frozen foot of it in Iceland
    slip of a glacier

  117. post cancer
    accepting a new start
    on the mountain path

    Robert Kingston
    Chelmsford, United Kingdom
    Haiku dialogue march 25

  122. inside the glacier
    an ancient man
    soon to be released

    Response to Keith Evetts’

    galumphing glaciers!
    the woolly mammoth
    re-engineered

    (from further down the thread)

  126. far off Helvellyn snow the nouns of verbs 

    Alan Summers

    Blithe Spirit 25.4 (November 2015)
    Lake District, Cumbria (England)

    Land of the Lake Poets incl.
    William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey
    and of course Dorothy Wordsworth as not published in her lifetime,
    she provided the inspiration for her brother William’s work.
    She climbed Helvellyn many times with her brother,
    and climbed Scafell Pike before her brother William,
    and was the ace climber.

  127. we only have
    so many heartbeats
    creaking glacier

    Response to Alan Summer’s

    an older heartbeat
    the blur of a pine marten
    on the glacier road

    (first poem in the thread)

    1. call of geese the heart I eat inside

      Alan Summers

      otata 4 (April, 2016) ed. John Martone

      we only have
      so many heartbeats
      creaking glacier

      Mark Gilbert
      In response to Alan Summers:

      an older heartbeat
      the blur of a pine marten
      on the glacier road

      (first poem in the thread)

  133. The Big Stone—
    deposited by ice
    or thrown by giant

    Known locally as ‘The Big Stone’, the glacial erratic Cloch Mór/ Cloughmore is located on Slieve Martin in the Mourne Mountains, County Down. However, according to legend, this fifty-tonne granite boulder was thrown there during a battle between two giants.

    1. Fox’s Glacier Mint dissolving matter
      of time

      (Fox’s Glacier Mints are a brand of hard boiled mint made in Leicester, England, since 1918. The manufacturer merged and the the new company was renamed and moved away)

    1. i wonder
      about it’s gender
      in Hindi

      Replying to Keith’s:

      glacier
      in French
      it’s masculine

    1. HHPD Robert Kingston,

      The transformation of yours prompted me:

      glacier melt –
      water color mountain
      in spring rain

      1. I thought we’d caught you sleeping, Michael.
        A nice rendition.

        sleep mode
        the mountains’s cold
        in slow flow

        1. Robert, I was rewinding, and found your note.

          While here, I’m sharing a similar from back in the day:

          slowing
          Niagra

          falls
          down

          to freeze frame

  167. releasing a little trout
    back in a high Sierra lake
    the glacier’s grace

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Our mission is made possible by the generosity of others. Learn how you can provide vital support to our organization.

Donate | Volunteer

Questions, comments, or concerns? We’d love to hear from you!

Home | Policies, Disclaimers, & Terms of Use | Contact

The Haiku Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization proudly operating as an inclusive remote workplace and is staffed exclusively by community volunteers.

The Haiku Foundation
P.O. Box 2461
Winchester, VA
22604-1661
USA

Back To Top