Lewis Alexander, an African American poet, actor, and playwright born in 1900, composed “Japanese Hokku 1” during the Harlem Renaissance, a period in the 1920s and 1930s when Black writers and artists were redefining modern culture. Alexander stood out for his fascination with Japanese poetry at a time when many of his peers were exploring blues and jazz rhythms. The hokku, an early term for what readers now call haiku, gave him a tiny, disciplined frame. That frame, with its strict three-line structure, suited a poem about paying close attention to a single vivid moment.
The speaker of “Japanese Hokku 1” calls out to apple blossoms with an intimate “O” and asks them for “your words of silence.” On the surface, the request makes no sense: blossoms do not speak. Yet the speaker insists that their stillness is a kind of language. By the third line, “Yes, your charming speech,” the blossoms seem to have answered, not with sound but with their presence. The central idea emerges through that gentle paradox. True communication can happen without words, and the most charming speech may be the quiet loveliness of petals opening in spring. The speaker does not ask for facts or explanations but for a kind of knowledge that precedes or surpasses language. The poem invites readers to listen with more than their ears, to treat silence not as emptiness but as a message.
Technically, the poem follows the classic 5-7-5 syllable pattern of hokku. “O apple blossoms” carries five syllables; “Give me your words of silence” carries seven; “Yes, your charming speech” returns to five. There is no rhyme, and the poem does not need one because the lines create their own quiet music. The first line works as an invocation, the second as a request, and the third as a delighted acceptance. The comma after “silence” creates a brief pause, as if the speaker is listening for the answer, while the final period closes the exchange with calm certainty. The word “O” makes the opening feel like a prayer or a whispered aside rather than a declaration.
The imagery is small but luminous. Apple blossoms suggest springtime, soft white and pink petals, sweetness in the air, and the fleeting beauty of a tree in bloom. The phrase “words of silence” binds two opposites together so tightly that the reader must pause and make sense of the collision. “Charming” personifies the blossoms, giving them a social grace, and “speech” completes the metaphor of the tree as a speaker in a conversation with the human observer. Even the title’s “Japanese Hokku” signals that this is a poem aware of its own form, borrowing a tradition that values suggestion over statement.
What makes the poem significant is its cross-cultural reach and its spiritual restraint. A Harlem Renaissance writer choosing to write in a Japanese form reminds readers that Black modernism was expansive and global. Alexander did not need a sweeping poem to make a lasting impression. Three lines were enough to suggest that nature speaks in a voice beyond human language, and that anyone can learn to hear it. In an era of constant noise, “Japanese Hokku 1” remains a small but powerful invitation to stop, look at a flowering tree, and let silence speak.