Carpe Diem Haiku's "Analyze That Haiku"

An interesting new feature at the Carpe Diem Haiku website, to analyse a given haiku. As Chevrefeuille, who runs the site, says:

"It is said that haiku is not easy to compose, but is even more difficult to read. If you ask a reader to tell you what they think you experienced while writing a haiku, they will almost certainly tell you another story than you had in mind when composing your haiku."


The following haiku has accordingly been offered for analysis:

in the old barn

behind the hay bales

a secret meeting

I often feel the background, or location tells the story. In this haiku, the old barn is the prime story, not the secret. It appears in the first line for a start, suggesting the events in this haiku is but one of the things that happens here. And as in many haiku we have the juxtaposition, the polar opposites so to speak, the old barn and the young meeting - youth is suggested by the secrecy of the meeting, and the almost masculine bales of hay - the result of hard, virile labour, surely a feminine fantasy. But hay is also the future, the proof and result of hard work and toil, fodder for animals. This fodder, and the illicit meeting, are the 'renewal,' the next year, next generation and marriage vows to come - but again its the location. The meeting does not take place in an old church but in an old barn. This is no sacrifice at the altar, yet a barn remains symbolic of much, including the birth place of Jesus, as well as of childhood and nature, or the cultivation of germinated nature. As such it is almost a holy setting, and provides shelter for generations to come, who may also go through the ritual here.

As such the barn plays a role in a line, before church and new home, and is appropriately more fragile and more quick to burn than the other two, physically and metaphorically. And it is from the large doorway that a couple will emerge from childhood into adulthood.

A perfect place for a secret meeting - who would be able to resist the temptation of a seductive few moments cushioned in the hay!

she awaits..
picture from http://www.pinterest.com/debra723/sexy-cowgirl-barn-boudoir/