cherry blossoms and haiku
How can’t I not pay myself a ‘jornal’ of $1000 for the beauty of cherry blossoms? I’m sure you agree.
I used to live half of the year in Baltimore. A trip to Washington, yes, at the Jefferson Memorial and the Mall was like a ritual for me and the friend I stayed with.
But the very first cherry blossoms I’ve seen and I thought it a miracle was at Washington Square by New York University in Manhattan; we then lived a block away on Cooper Square. And later an even more breath-snagging burst of blossoms on a day the sun descended at its tenderest happened at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.
Of all the spring blossoms, indeed, that of the cherry tree draws the most awe. How can’t a cloud of pink not make one think of a state or place other than this brown earth. Even just being under the shade transforms us a bit like we seem to grow haloes.
My memories of walking under canopies of cherry blossoms in Washington and Baltimore on Riverside had endured and even inspired me to write haiku–as well around the blossoms hundreds of haiku have been written.
Now that I live in Vancouver, another cherry blossom city, my awe may never cease. I would like to share this haiku I wrote after a walk on Riverside in Baltimore.
cherry tree
shedding off petals at dusk—
moths in flight
Copyright © 2007 by Alegria Imperial
Honorable Mention, 2007 Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational
posted as comment at PEN Blogs
tears
I wrote this poem during one of those moments when feelings and reality crunch into images that in turn transform into words. It’s a favorite among those who have read it where I posted it a few months ago. Because readers like it, I give myself a ‘jornal’ of another $800.
crystal drops said to ease
a heart dammed with regrets
bitter drops known as balm
for a seared spirit no kiss
could soothe could heal
salty drips on lips
cracked with sadness
the dryness of a drought
absence of rain
has not caused
droplets but not dew
in the morning
a spark to tease
a blinded heart
modified from posting in iluko.com
haiku
desert nights
wind tracks to follow
the sputtering light
So rare, a haiku moment thus I’m writing myself a check of $800 as my “jornal”.
flash fiction
braid on her shoulder
touching the mound
of her breast–
she picks from tousled sheets
loose hair not hers
Because of the many hidden meanings and an untold story, I give myself a ‘jornal’ of $300 for this flash of images.
now
I like this poem, its rhythm or just the sound of it when I read or recite it. It’s one of those for which I’d write myself a check of $1,000 for my “jornal”. What do you think?
now’s a sound, a
hacking
in space a rhythmic
splicing
a phantom hand
scythe upright
in greed
cutting in swaths
—its mode a sharp embrace:
no sweetness
there
now’s a push but no
sudden one, instead a
jabbing
in the skull
a stabbing not for blood
but eternal
jiggling swaggering
a relentless dribbling
of words and water to whet
though never—
that’s how it feeds
a pattern scissoring
now is
a space splitting blankness
into ‘then’
and ‘later ‘ bulking up
with what’s decayed
one row what’s nothing
the other
only now knows
a pulse but not
the kind on which
life hangs
now’s a beat that
threatens a breath
this fragile silk
now snaps in two
once the known now
the unknown
© Copyright 2007 by Alegria Imperial/Published in poetslane, iluko.com
haiku
against a grey sky–
the sparkle of raindrops
on leafless maple twigs
My “jornal”? $200 for my pocket.
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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