#poem, «To Float in the Sky» (An Euro-Ku)

No mortal foot can touch…
No light more silver white…
No distractions, always bright.

C.2024, Francisco Bravo Cabrera – 23 OCT 2024 – Valencia, Spain

NOTA BENE

The Euro-Ku, a style I developed in 2022, is the way a Western poet/writer can best approach a style of poetry native to Japan, the Haiku. As someone who does not have the history or the culture of an authentic Japanese poet, it is impossible to do justice to that honorable and long tradition. Therefore, wishing to honour the style but to give it the spirit that a work of art has when it is made in accordance to one’s place and time, I invented this new form, the Euro-Ku. It has three lines (stanzas, verses) but without a syllabic count (as our language does not have the same rhythms as the Japanese language), and each line must follow the previous one logically and sensibly. The lines cannot just go off floating in the air, as that works in Japanese but not in Western languages. And finally the poem must be accompanied by an illustration also of the authorship of the poet. Simple, clear, spiritual and in accordance to Western history and culture.