I Knew a Pigeon: Haiku Entertainment in Quarantine

Isolation is uniting my scattered family of six like nothing else. Our 24-year-old son, James, who lives a few states away, led it off with a family group text titled: “Quarantine Haiku #1.”

I’ve gotta tell you. I’ve been waiting for this. My heart goes out to those parents quarantined with young children. I can’t imagine. Actually, having four sons, I can. There were days I tossed them out in the Tahoe snow at 9:00 am and let them back in at 5:00. Before you get all judgy, I put food out for them around noon. And maybe hot chocolate, to keep it fun.

Thankfully, my sons are older now and I’m experiencing the delightful value-added part of having grown children. Following the 5-7-5 syllable haiku pattern, James texted: Pundits on pulpits, Bully repetitiously, Captive audience.

Not sure I fully appreciate the depth of that. Doesn’t matter. I’m thrilled that he came up with the idea, acting on his creative impulse and thereby bringing a welcome respite from our world’s serious hardship. I was mighty proud of him and his brothers, who jumped right in. More importantly, I wanted to play!

But it was John’s turn. He’s the oldest at 25, and lives with us. Which is fine, really. I like that we’ve gotten to know him better. In fact, we were so distracted raising his three younger brothers that when John headed off to college, my husband and I looked at each other with shared surprise that he was gone. We were sad to be done with the daily interaction.

But it’s back. Now in a big way with this lockdown. And he can skip his night of doing dishes after his haiku, which I had no problem understanding: “I am unemployed, Have not washed hair in two weeks, Save on laundry though.”

I ha ha-ed his text, but tried to contain my excitement, not wanting to scare off other potential poets. Of course, I had to participate: “Concerned for TP, Should have hoarded small white sheets, It’s not how I roll.” 

We grew possessed, our regular conversation now in haiku. Entertaining, yes, but the syllable constraint did confuse me at times. For instance, when Paul, the youngest, who’s still at college, wrote: “’Rona closed kitchens, 4 worthless pasta boxes, Longing for pesto.” I texted, “Who’s Rona?” I’m sure you know the answer: “coronavirus.” Duh. That word spreads itself over an entire line.

After two days of haikus, the third son hadn’t contributed. I texted: “Where o where is a, Peter haiku? O where o, Where can it be-ya?” John objected to my using “ya” to add a syllable. He’d taken on the role of haiku police because he also complained when I repeated the same word five times. Having learned our sons might not qualify for the $1,200 aid, I’d written: “Twelve hundred dollars, Easy come, so easy go, Sad sad sad sad sad.” It all but erased the pain of my 36-hour labor with John when he haiku-ed his objection: “I feel like using, The same word for a whole line, Is kinda cheating.” My heart swelled.

And the third son? Peter did eventually break his silence and respond to my prodding. He wrote: “I knew a pigeon, And I think his name was coo, So I said “hi coo.”