Hymn
by Michael Dylan Welch and Caleb Mutua
First published in Haiku Canada Review 18:1, February 2024, page 69. Originally written 26 December 2017 at Pegasus Restaurant on Alki Beach in Seattle, Washington (the restaurant, a favourite of mine, is sadly no longer in business).
such quiet . . .
snow filling
the birdhouse hole Michael
windshield wipers
swishing snow Caleb
the creak of rafters
in the old wooden barn—
midday snowfall Michael
children squeal—
a zigzag track
on the sledding hill Caleb
the snowplow rumbles
up the back alley Michael
church doorway—
a Christmas hymn
mingles with snowflakes Caleb
“Hymn” is a rengay I wrote with Kenyan poet Caleb Mutua, who was visiting Seattle, Washington. In 2010 I had published a selection of Caleb’s haiku in Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends, but this was the first time we’d met in person. To commemorate our rare time together I thought we might write the six-verse collaborative form of rengay. I used to live in Ghana, a long way from Kenya, but at least in Africa. He had stayed in Seattle with a host family previously and was there again for a Christmas visit. Snow was a novelty to him, so that became our theme. We wrote this hymn to snow at Pegasus, an Italian restaurant on Alki Beach in West Seattle. How’s that for bringing cultures together?