Moon Haiku

Something Lighter

I’ve been posting some heavy stuff lately, so I figured I’d publish something lighter: ten haiku about the moon that I’ve written over the years. I love looking up at the sky (some would say I have my head in the clouds!) and the moon is a classic subject for Japanese haiku, so here goes.

3 A.M.
Flooding light
Frosts the floor

~

Broken clouds
Tinged with white
Somewhere the moon

~

Reddish clouds
The only sign of
Moon’s eclipse

~

Skylight frost
Refracting silver
New Year’s moon

~

Butter moon
Halfway over the rim
Of the hill

~

Setting moon
Snowy peaks
Which is whiter?

~

Rising sun
Setting moon
Which is brighter?

~

Behind the roof
The moon glows silver
Lights beneath are gold

~

A yellow smudge
Off to the east
No moon for clouds

~

So orange
Like an alien sun
High smoke moon

As you can see, I don’t use the standard 17-syllable (5/7/5) form of Japanese haiku, since our tongue has more short words than theirs does (see what I did there?). Instead, I compose these as ultra-short poems of anywhere from nine to fourteen syllables. I’m still experimenting...

Tree, Moon, Cloud, 2026-06-10, by Peter Saint-Andre