Miriam Chaikin, illustrated by Hiroe Nakata,
Don’t Step on the Sky: A Handful of Haiku.
Henry Holt, 2002

The haiku form of poetry too often comes across as short, sweet, and simple. It’s not so, of course, as any serious student of haiku knows. Haiku is an ancient form of Japanese poetry that once adhered to strict syllable counts and was influenced by Buddhist thought. Today the emphasis on counting syllables has loosened up, at least in English. A haiku remains a short poem of close observation and surprise that, whether it is serious or humorous in tone, often presents images of the natural world, as Miriam Chaikin explains in the note that introduces Don’t Step on the Sky. Chaikin clearly has studied the haiku form, and the result is a lovely little book that offers just the right amount of reading for a relaxed sitting.

Hiroe Nakata’s softly stylized watercolors make the perfect accompaniment for a journey that begins at dawn:

Early morning,
a lone crow on a high post:
caw caw empty world.

Soon we see a little girl who is getting her hair brushed by a window where flowers are blooming. The little girl, like many of the ancient Japanese haiku masters, addresses what she sees:

Lovely lily
alive for only a day.
Take good care of yourself.

The poems that follow present the observations and discoveries of this young protagonist, illustrated by Nakata as she goes about her day:

A cardinal in the yard.
My heart stops.
A red secret.

Occasionally the poems lapse into cliché, as with the image of raindrops as a "gallery of diamonds," but generally they keep readers looking at and listening to the world around them with fresh eyes and ears, even when the day is done:

The windows keep me
awake all night,
arguing with the wind.

Notice that it’s not the wind keeping the girl awake, it’s the windows – a subtle but significant difference.

In the best haiku tradition, Chaikin’s poems are often funny, forcing us to notice the world in new ways:

The cat sits on her haunches,
watching the street.
How like an eggplant!

Nakata’s whimsical illustrations are painterly enough to avoid being too sweet, and her palette of moss greens, muted blues, grays, roses, and golds is at times almost ethereal. I only wish this little girl had met a little boy in the course of he day, to remind us that boys also get down on their hands and knees to look at puddles, and might curl up afterward with a good book of haiku.

Patricia Kirkpatrick
Spring 2002