sunflower
its head now too heavy
to meet the sun
Karma Tenzing Wangchuk: Born South-Central L. A. in 1946 to blue-collar parents. First rejection slip age 7, from Reader’s Digest for a lame joke. First attempts at haiku, 1964 as a college freshman, SDSU, influenced by D. T. Suzuki, R. H. Blyth, Harold G. Henderson, the Peter Pauper books and the Beats. On sabbatical from haiku till mid-1998. Became a Buddhist in Viet Nam, 1968, a lay Buddhist monk in 1999; took formal vows in 2005. Chapbooks include 90 Frogs (haiku, 1999) and Clouds Gather and Part (tanka, 2004). Consider Basho, Issa, Santoka mentors, but any good haiku–in fact, any thing–is a teacher. The works of Makoto Ueda and Haruo Shirane are pine-pitch, amber. Present home Port Townsend, Cascadia, Turtle Island. Active in Port Militarization Resistance movement. Two haiku collections coming out soon.