FROM: Mouse of Zen Monday Published Mondays
Haiku: Magic Kingdom March #3
JB Conway, as far as I know, is the world's only Disney poet, and his haikus about Disney World offer beautiful, personal insights. Like this one. It's about a child whose balloons fly away. But is that really a sad thing?
The haiku theme for this month is Magic Kingdom March. Each week, JB Conway will evoke the Magic Kingdom in haiku. Maybe it's a ride. Maybe a building. Maybe it's a scent or a sound. Whatever it is, JB's haiku will conjure it in your mind and make it real again.
One of the saddest experiences of childhood is to watch your balloons somehow work loose from your grip and fly away, out of reach, soon out of sight.
It's often the first time you realize that your parents can't always help.
I'm not so sure JB's haiku expresses sadness. It chronicles a sad event, for sure, but look where those balloons are headed: to mouse-shaped clouds.
Me and optimism have a rocky relationship, but I see only brief sorrow in this haiku: the kid, after all, is in Disney World, and all he has to do is look around to become happy again.
And maybe he has the kind of parent who, instead of saying "look what you did", will say "let's go buy some more".
By the way, if you haven't bought JB's book, Mouse of Zen, and yet you come here each week to read his haikus, why do you torture yourself? Are you a masochist? (Or maybe a mouseochist?) Don't you know you can get all the haikus at once? In the book!
More: MOUSE OF ZEN MONDAY
Stuff Not to Skip
- Mouse of Zen
http://www.mouseofzen.com - Mouse of Zen on Lulu
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/mouse-of-zen/12190364 - Mouse of Zen on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Zen-J-B-Conway/dp/0557242703 - Frontierland on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontierland