blending with the howls
of hyenas on the hunt —
human happiness
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NOTES
I wrote the original version of this haiku as part of a renga at Fálki’s Mighty Network. But I didn’t use it for that, because I thought it was too much of a departure from the couplet I was joining.
Here’s the couplet, written by another poet:
Friends and family arrive
The sounds of laughter ensue
Here’s the original:
blending with the howls
of hyenas on the hunt —
human tragedy
After a while, I rewrote the last line to add a bigger jump. That is to say, “hyenas on the hunt” is more contrasted by “human happiness” than by “human tragedy”, so it’s a bigger jump.
As a matter of fact, though, “human happiness” is not only a bigger jump within my haiku — it’s also a closer fit with the couplet I was extending. “The sounds of laughter ensue” couples well with “human happiness”.
This is all moot, though, because I like this haiku a lot as a standalone.
If you’re going through these haiku in numerical order, you have already read the haiku that actually became part of the renga in place of this one.
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