The Heron's Nest

Editors' Choices

The Heron's Nest Award

What can be said about a poem of three words? When one of them is not even quite a word? When one of them is “this?”

At my first gathering of haiku poets, I witnessed a spirited debate about whether “the” or “a” was the best word for a certain spot in the poem being workshopped. So, no worries. There is always something to be said.

There are active haiku readers and passive. If we write to a passive reader, we are tempted to tell more. But a poem as short as this one almost requires that the reader be another poet.

Isn’t it ironic that such a short poem might be easily misunderstood? Take “moonlight.”

It means the light of the moon, of course, but it also means to work a second job. And the “cricket” in “cricketlessness” can be the familiar (to some) chirping insect. But it can, in certain settings, be just as plausibly a beloved sport. A cricket is also a low wooden stepstool. Even “this” can, depending on context, function as an adjective, a definite article, a noun or even an adverb.

The fact that these words are presented as a haiku gives us certain clues because there are certain expectations of haiku. Not rules, mind you, but base understandings, which can be starting points for a “haiku reading” of the words.

One such expectation is that the moon and its light are, at least in a first reading, literal — the moon in the sky and the light it reflects upon the earth. More than this, haiku convention suggests that this moonlight is occurring during the autumn. Indeed, “moon” and “moonlight” are the key indicators of autumn in haiku.

The cricket, while it could be the game or even the stepstool, is almost always the insect in haiku. And, in particular, the songs of such creatures. Cricket is an autumn kigo, so this three-word poem may be considered doubly anchored in autumn. However, it is anchored by a presence (moonlight) and an absence (cricketlessness).

A further base expectation of haiku is that there are two parts, separated by a syntactical gap. The gap in this very short poem occurs after the first word.

So, what is an active haiku reader likely to experience in these three words and the gap within them? Well, even with all the additional information provided by our base expectations of haiku, there are still many possibilities. I will not attempt an exhaustive catalog of them. Indeed, I could not. I will give you my initial reading; emphasizing that this is no more authoritative than yours or anyone else’s. Active haiku readers will all bring something of themselves to the poem.

Moonlight, for me, is quiet and peaceful. Crickets, where they are present, would be lively and assertive; their calls likely to override any other sounds. But there are no crickets in this moment. This might tend to echo the sense of moonlight. In the same way that the poem says “autumn of autumn” it might say, to me, “peace and quiet.” But it does not work this way for me. I am thinking of crickets, though not actually hearing them. My thoughts are in contrast to the peaceful moonlight. It’s not “a cricketlessness” but “this cricketlessness.” That absence of sound is present as an intrusive idea, an earworm. And, therefore, I experience this poem as a moment of tension — a peaceful setting in which my monkey mind is jabbering.

But the simplicity of the poem serves as an encapsulation and my reading experience is one of serenity, even when I read it as a depiction of tension.

John Stevenson
September 2025