For a few glorious days early this month, my family and I enjoyed some much needed rest at our friends’ cottage in Quebec. I indulged in some Cottage Creativity while I was there (as did my family) which I’d like to share with you this week. The first part is a few haiku poems that I composed while sitting on the dock with my two 20-something kids. I decided to base the poems on observations of what was going on at the lake for that hour we relaxed together.

Haiku is a traditional Japanese form of  three-line poetry, usually composed of a 5-syllable line, a 7-syllable line, and a 5-syllable line. It is an exercise in sparseness of words to communicate much bigger thoughts. Below are the haiku I came up with on that beautiful August afternoon plus some photos taken on the lake.

Cottage Haiku

A loon all alone
Sings a lovely aria
Gets me every time

A loon on the lake
Submerges without a splash
And outswims the fish

Floatplane soars and roars
Casting a swift shadow down
That runs on tree tops

Floatplane skims the lake
And gracefully touches down
Air to waterborne

Motorboat of fun
Glad you’re enjoying yourselves
But hate your music

Thousands of green trees
Crowd the water’s stony edge
Like eager beavers

Fish breach and hop, flop
Jumping high for tasty bugs
Dinner and a show

Expanse of water
Fresh and cold, sparkling like gems
Magic to tired souls

Boat/Shore shoving match
Pushing water back then forth
Loon bobs in between

Mama duck and babes
Serenely they pass on by
Me and my small brood

by Ronald Kok, August 1, 2017