Komorebi

My thanks to Editor Bhawana Rathore for publishing three of my haiku in her wonderful August 2026 Summer/Monsoon theme Issue 2 of The Bougainvillea Journal.

komorebi
the chameleon
half hidden

Komorebi (木漏れ日) is a Japanese word that captures something most languages leave unnamed – the interplay of light and leaves when sunlight filters through a tree canopy, creating that dappled, shifting pattern of light and shadow on the ground below.

Breaking down the kanji: 木 (ko) means tree or wood, 漏れ (more) means leaking or filtering through, and 日 (bi) means sun or light, or as a whole, “sunlight leaking through trees.”

What makes the word beloved beyond Japan is what it represents about Japanese aesthetics of attention to transient, subtle natural phenomena. Komorebi is a moment, not a thing. It exists only when wind moves the leaves, when the angle of light is just right, and when you happen to look. There’s no English equivalent to the word.

jasmine breeze
a door left open
to the night

tiptoe reach
the best cherries
on the highest branch

Click here to read Issue 2 of The Bougainvillea Journal.