--- In happyhaiku@yahoogroups.com, "Greve Gabi"
<gokurakuatworldkigo@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Larry san,
> thanks so much for this heartwarming story!
> Which season would a beaver be most active to make it as kigo ? ???
>
> We have a littleseal who makes it all the way up a river in Tokyo !
>
> GABI


The beaver kigo question is not easy to answer. They are most active
from early spring (even late winter) to late fall. In winter, they
mostly hole-up in their lodges with a winter-long store of food while
the pond they have created with their dam may be mostly frozen over.

In the fall, beavers are active in reinforcing their lodges with mud
which, when it freezes, makes their stick-lodges virtually
impenetrable to wolves and wolverines.

Young beavers leave the nest in spring when they are two-years-old,
to make room for the next litter, and go off to build lodges and dams
in new territory.

According to the Farmer's Almanac, an unnamed Native American tribe
named the November full moon the "full beaver moon:"

"Full Beaver Moon - November

"This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to
ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests
that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers
are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred
to as the Frosty Moon."


Here are some beaver haiku:


even the little beaver
says shit on work
this spring day

--Cor van den Heuvel ("Seer Ox" No.3, Copyright © 1975)



mosquitoes
the slap of a beaver tail
at twilight

--Alice Frampton ("The Heron's Nest," Vol. VII, No. 3: September,
2005)


snowmelt–
beaver dam swept
to the river's edge

--William Scott Galasso ("The Heron's Nest," Vol. IV, No. 8: August,
2002)


Winter moon;
a beaver lodge in the marsh,
mounded with snow

--Robert Spiess ["Haiku West," 6:1 (1972); "The Haiku Anthology,"
edited by Cor van den Heuvel (Norton, 1999)]



Quiet strokes
of night swimmer: the slap
of beaver tails . . .

--Virginia Brady Young (Honorable Mention, 1979 Harold G. Henderson
Memorial Award, The Haiku Society of America)


rainstorm on the pond;
beaver pushing a poplar limb
to plug the dam

--Charles Dickson (publication information unknown)


freezing day...
above the beaver house
a puff of steam

--Vaughn Seward (aka "Masago") (self-published on the internet)


On my fishing log
A beaver's wet belly has
Left a brush stroke there

--Brian Kokensparger ("Dogwood Blossoms," Vol. 1, Issue 8, June, 1994)


Larry