“The only real measure of a haiku,” Allen told us that one hot July afternoon, “is upon hearing one, your mind experiences a small sensation of space” — he paused; I leaned in, breathless — “which is nothing less than God.”

— Natalie Goldberg, Three Simple Lines: A writer’s pilgrimage into the heart and homeland of haiku

All things are the same, yet all is new. The sameness and the difference; in the unity of these two lies an unnamable, ineffable meaning which the following verses rejoice to express.

— R. H. Blyth, Haiku vol. 2: Spring

I write this by lamplight
holed up for the winter
there it is on the page

— Buson

New Year’s Day:

clouds dispersed, and sparrows

chattering away

— Sōin

New Year’s Day
dawns clear, and sparrows
tell their tales

— Hattori Ransetsu

new year’s visit
3 generations greet me
with the same smile

—Roberta Beary

Basho’s Deep North
my footsteps zigzag
on the first snow

— Fay Aoyagi

Even my shadow
Is safe and sound and in the best of health,
This first morning of spring.

— Issa

it’s play for the cranes
flying up to the clouds
the year’s first sunrise —

— Chiyo-ni

I rinse the rice
a second time
New Year’s Day

— Peggy Willis Lyles

New Year’s Dawn
light first gathers
in the icicles

— Jim Kacian

Issa and I
home alone again–
New Year’s eve

— dagosan/David Gialcone

waiting for happiness ―
i hang
 a new calendar

— Louis Osofsky

Sending out steam
dedicating Bonden
New Year’s Festival

— Akito Arima

a new year —
the same nonsense
piled on nonsense

— Issa

The first dream of the year —
I kept it a secret,
and smiled to myself.

— Shō-u

The First Day of the Year —
Through the door of my hut
A field of barley

— Shōha

New Year’s Day —
nothing good or bad —
just human beings

— Shiki

that is good, this too is good —
New Year’s Day
In my old age

— Rōyto

New Year’s Eve –
the lentil soup
again

— Tom Clausen

first dream –
the way home
perfectly clear

— Michael Dylan Welch