Frogpond 34.3 • Autumn 2011 (pdf) - Haiku Society of America

Thirdly, there is only one haiku that is remotely like his definition
of how haiku works and what most readers of the form
would consider haiku:
God flutters onto
my finger and bats his eyes—
silver butterfly.
The rest of the “haiku” are really spiritual jokes or insights in
relation to Kabbalah:
Deduce the presence A guide who’s hoped to
of the infinite from His meet you for eight hundred years
prints on your fingers. waits in the Zohar.
These two are typical. Others are more obscure:
Abulafia Climbing twenty-two
opened God’s door with a key steps to the pyramid’s point,
shaped like an alef. and unite.
Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia (1240- after1291) based a number
of meditations on the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
which begins with alef.
Some of these “haiku” have the “flavor” of mysticism. In the
Zohar “masters of attributes” are those who understand the
sefira. Is Zimler one of these? That is up to the reader to decide.
For sure, he has great humor that would be of interest to
those who are interested in Kabbalah, not unlike those jokes
about frogs in haiku circles.
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94 Haiku Society of America