a box of nails

on the shelf of the shed

the cold

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John Wills (1921-1993). From "The Haiku Anthology (revised edition)" (1991), edited by Cor Van Den Heuvel.

The sharpness of the nails accentuates the cold! One imagines the nails are jumbled together in the box rather than being neatly arranged in lines - if only because that would further accentuate the cold that pervades this haiku. These nails are sitting in the unheated shed on a shelf where sunlight would not bathe them and therefore warm them in the slightest. The fact that there are so many nails and they are all unused, not being able to fulfil their very reason for existence, accentuates the cold in what can only be termed a profound way. A classic example of the "yugen" concept in haiku -- intense feelings elicited by the unspoken, invisible and/or subtle.

Selected and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

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Pique your poetic interest with more Haiku in English here.