Not every truth needs a paragraph. Sometimes the most powerful words are the ones that never appear on the page. That is the secret of haiku. With just seventeen syllables, haiku captures not only what is written, but what is implied. It asks us to lean into silence, to notice the spaces in between, to feel what is left unsaid.
In A Little Haiku, by Miranda Leigh, this space becomes its own kind of language. Each poem opens a doorway, but never fully tells us what lies inside. The reader is invited to step in, to bring their own memory, longing, or question, and to complete the thought.
Silence as Meaning
Haiku thrives on simplicity.
A poem like “Listen to the rain / What is it trying to say / Trying to explain” is both direct and mysterious. The rain itself speaks, but only partly. The rest is left for us to interpret. Is it grief? Renewal? A reminder to pause? By not answering, the poem honors the reader’s own response.
This restraint is not emptiness—it is an invitation. Silence, here, is not absence but presence. It’s the fertile ground where emotion blooms.
The Space Between
One of the great beauties of haiku is its reliance on suggestion. A fragment like “Hidden stars above / Waiting for the chance to shine / Magic in the sky” gives us only a glimpse. Yet in that glimpse, we feel both wonder and longing. The poem never tells us what the stars mean. Instead, it trusts us to see ourselves in their quiet brilliance. Their distance invites reflection, their silence whispers possibilities, and their faint light becomes a mirror for our own hopes and secrets. We stand beneath them, aware of the vast night, sensing endless stories shimmering just beyond words.
This is the power of what’s unsaid: it allows the reader to be a participant, not just an observer.
A Pause for the Soul
Haiku’s brevity is not a limitation—it’s liberation. By distilling life into images, it demands presence. The poem “Stillness unravels / I can feel the pause of life / Yet, I feel alive” shows how a single moment can hold a paradox: emptiness and fullness, pause and pulse.
This is the power of what’s unsaid: it allows the reader to be a participant, not just an observer. By leaving room between the words, the poem opens a space for personal reflection and imagination.
Why It Matters
We live in a world that often values noise over nuance. Haiku offers the opposite. It reminds us that not all meaning needs to be explained. That sometimes, what moves us most deeply are the things hinted at, not spelled out.
In A Little Haiku, every poem is both complete and unfinished. Complete in form, unfinished in meaning—because the rest belongs to the reader.
The next time you read a haiku, notice the silence. Notice what rises in you between the lines. That quiet response—that’s the poem too.
Because sometimes, the truest poetry is not what is written. It’s what is left unsaid.
