The Sacred In Contemporary Haiku

Horace, the ancient Roman poet, declared that “every old poem is sacred.” Whatever could he have meant by that? The contributors to this haiku collection pour forth their contemporary poetic response by calling our attention to unassuming moments in church and temple; meadow and mountain; on the train and on the trail; where they find their hearts brimming over with reverence, awe, wonder, silence, joy, affection and love. No moment or event is too fleeting or too small to embody the sacred; indeed, as the English poet William Blake famously observed, the universe itself may be found in a single grain of sand. There is even a place for doubt, uncertainty, sensuality and humor in a world that is infused with the sacred. Be the first to behold with the haiku poets in these pages the abundance of sweetness and holiness that surrounds us wherever we are, whatever our circumstances. In doing so your very life may become a blessing or a poem, as the test of time hallows the poetry here.