favor of crows fa vo r o f c r o ws new and collected haiku Gerald Vizenor Wesleyan University Press Middletown, Connecticut Wesleyan Poetry Wesleyan University Press Middletown CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress © 2014, 1999, 1984, 1964, Gerald Vizenor All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill Typeset in 11pt Arno Pro Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Vizenor, Gerald Robert, 1934– [Poems. Selections] Favor of Crows : New and Collected Haiku / Gerald Vizenor. pages cm.—(Wesleyan Poetry series) ISBN 978-0-8195-7432-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8195-7433-6 (ebook) I. Title. PS3572.I9F39 2014 811'.54 — dc23 2013037645 5 4 3 2 1 The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the illustrations by Robert Houle. "Cover illustration by Rick Bartow, Crow's Mortality Tale,pastel on paper, 2001. Courtesy of the artist and Froelick Gallery, Pertland, OR." In Memory of Six Poets and Teachers Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa Ezra Pound, Eda Lou Walton, Edward Copeland The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. “In a Station of the Metro,” Ezra Pound I would be free of you, my body; Free of you, too, my little soul. “Beyond Sorrow,” Eda Lou Walton The first to come I am called Among the birds. I bring the rain Crow is my name “Song of the Crows,” Henry Selkirk contents Haiku Scenes An Introduction ix Spring Scenes 1 Summer Scenes 33 Autumn Scenes 65 Winter Scenes 97 haiku scenes An Introduction The heart of haiku is a tease of nature, a concise, intuitive, and original moment. Haiku is visionary, a timely meditation, an ironic manner of creation, and a sense of motion, and, at the same time, a consciousness of seasonal impermanence. Haiku scenes are tricky fusions of emotion, ethos, and a sense of survivance. The aesthetic creases, or precise, perceptive turns, traces, and cut of words in haiku, are the stray shadows of nature in reverie and memory. The original moments in haiku scenes are virtual, the fugitive turns and transitions of the seasons, an interior perception of