Coral crowns sprouting,
a rock cathedral growing.
Life from living light.
In this Haiku I wanted to express the wonder of how a coral reef really works. There is a divinity in the expression of life through coral growth. The symbiosis between the coral polyps, the zooxanthellae (photosynthetic algae) that live in the corals tissue and the light of the sun all conspire to build these cathedral like structures of rock. The reef really is a living thing, something of endless growth, that evolves as the millennia pass. I tried to get this across in the Haiku in a simplistic way using imagery and religious metaphor. Hopefully the poem expressed some of what makes a great Haiku:
Shiori (しおり), gentleness; the levity and the delicate charm that radiates from the verses, where things are evoked in the reader without aggressiveness or excessive explicitness.
Mono no aware (物の哀れ), empathy with nature and human life; the "feeling of things", nostalgia, regret for the passing of time, understanding of the changeability and of the transience without suffering.
Karumi (軽み), beauty in simplicity; poetic beauty reflected in its simplicity, free from preconceptions and moral judgment.
Reference fromMizu No Oto Haiku Competition
This is day six of my month long challenge - from the 06th of August until the 06th of September - to post a daily Haiku on steem. Each week will have a different theme based on picture prompts from either Pixabay.com or Unsplash.com. This week's broad theme is different natural environments.
I have created a new tag #monthofhaiku. If anyone wants to replicate the challenge please feel free, I will check the tag occasionally and try to curate the better Haiku. However, this is not meant to be a challenge to the writers' community. I have an extremely busy month ahead, and I started this as a personal challenge so that I didn't drift away from posting on steem. Please, forgive me if I'm slow to respond to comments or am not around on discord, I have had to reassess my priorities over the last few weeks.
The picture used in this post is creative commons, linked below pic. If you have enjoyed this Haiku, please check out my homepage 
