stealing an ‘aha’ moment
I pulled this reply out to a comment of poet upinvermont, Patrick G, to sort of give a glimpse as to how a haiku moment comes or what an ‘aha’ (thanks to Jane and Werner) moment is for me.
“For my haiku to meld in the gentle sway of grasses as your thoughts quiet down is for me an honor as well as a confirmation that I’ve ‘stolen’ yet another ‘aha moment’ from an absolutely ‘silent’ world.
Isn’t it baffling that we, as supposed dwellers and masters of this universe that quietly, silently births, grows, dies, and rebirths again, strive so hard to find that which should come to us as naturally as a rose buds and blooms and then, painlessly sheds its petals and dissipates its fragrance yet wait to die and be born again?
Agony seems innate in us, isn’t it? Even our heartbeat or its dual action is called ‘agonist’(contracting) and ‘antagonist’(relaxing). Stretching the nuance of these terms, then, we seem to tread a path to bliss that is littered with globules of pain. But as we are more than our bodies and our senses, we, too, often grow wings and silently fly.
Winging off that’s what we are, I guess, in a haiku or poetic moment or in a moment that has quieted down as you have described that in which you are as you wrote the above comment. Take heart, dear friend. As the lake mirrors the sky with its myriad moods, so does it reflect your spirit.
The key to understanding this fleeting nature we perceive, I guess, is in our constant desire to find the lake serene. Or in our acceptance that we are hopelessly wandering like bedouins of the spirit who often turn into thieves of ‘aha moments.’ And haven’t we, don’t we?
on the lake
the geese float toward the sun
leaving the sun on the lake
ayuyang-limdo/a haunt for sadness
ILUKO tanka
ayuyang-limdo
diay aripit ballasiw
ditoy a sumken
sinit a nalidliduan
nagtinnag nga anem-em
a haunt for sadness
the dried creek at the crossroad
here they recur
those untended flushes
turned chronic fevers
One of two ILUKO Tanka I translated into English and Haiku sequences in English published in LYNX XXV: 2 June 2010
branches/upwind
1.
chestnut branches
in the breeze sway together–
without touching
2.
upwind
on the red maple tree
oh, such heaving
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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