The Red Dragonflies’ summer (and Christmas) meeting was held on Saturday 12th December at Pearl Beach Cafe, Pearl Beach, where members enjoyed a delicious lunch before workshopping their haiku over coffee. One of the prepared exercises had been to write a haiku about a childhood memory of Christmas. The haiku presented were testimony to the fact that memory can serve equally as well as observation in producing seemingly immediate haiku. Members agreed that, as Australians, it does seem a lot easier to write evocatively about the heat of summer than it does about winter’s cold… Despite the day being a glorious summer one, members were cooled by strong easterly breezes through the cafe’s open windows, which inspired the following ‘moment’:

sea breezes sweep the cafe –
we hold on to our haiku

Lunch was followed by a ginko on the foreshore, from which convenor, Vanessa Proctor, is hoping to produce a booklet. In this way, members will relive what was a most stimulating, enjoyable and, as always, convivial occasion.

Lesley Walter