more throwback tanka…another ‘duet’
again
the sea unloads
its burdens
still i cling
to you
in the wind
a wailing dove
you won’t see
as i bend a shadow
beyond yours
Alegria Imperial, Multiverses, Spring 2012
again/the sea unloads… (one of two of my tanka at Multiverses 1:1)
again
the sea unloads
its burdens
still i cling
to you
(photo by Ramond Ramos, the South China Sea in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte, The Philippines)
being there/refracted twilight (my haibun at LYNX)
being there
…it is the rhythm that’s constant it seems and not the stillness—the way the wind pulls and withdraws and the way the leaves sway and retract or how the clouds gather into masses and then dissipate into air or is it merely the eye that misses the jagged movements and edges and catches merely that moment when the rhythm shows and reassures us as in the constancy of flowers even as petals begin to brown and curl in the edges and fall, stripping the branches of their name because all we recall is their being there as in moments we have flowed into still flow into like on our early morning walks when
shifting tides–
the river unloading burdens
for us to decode
refracted twilight
…first time ever that twilight struck me as that almost sacred time when the day tears away to let night slip in, how the bleeding sunset fades into lemon yellow to shell white so much so that facing west where the light seems to turn down as in a timer heartbeat by heartbeat, the houses, trees and flowers even weeds become solid walls of darkness—no punctured points on twigs, no dancing spaces between leaves—but haven’t I watched this on my daily walks long ago back in Harbor Hill but then, the roosting sparrows and the first star on tips of pines pulled my steps back to ruminate and settling in, twilight would be for us that time when
first star—
we turn down the darkness
on our own sky
(excerpts from a diary)
LYNX XXVII:I February 2012
morning tide/seashore/high tide (my last post at NaHaiWriMo for now)
a.*
morning tide—
still
the heaving waves
b.
seashore–
washed off burdens
lapping at our feet
c.
billows and clouds
fading as dreams—
high tide
NaHaiWriMo prompt: seaside, seashore 07/16/2011
*the only one I posted on the site
I’m taking a breather from writing haiku on the NaHaiWriMo FB site to rethink on where I am and where I’m going with this genre. My writing a haiku has been taking me longer and longer, more tedious because the more I’m learning about what makes a good one, the more conscious I am of each word I put down. I feel that this process is taking a toll on the intuitive way I write poetry as most of the lines I write do seemingly write themselves out in one breath. Not so, with haiku that I want to work; yes, it comes easy when I’m ‘haiku-ing’ for myself or in this blog but when I begin to be conscious of ‘judging eyes’, I falter and fail and I write what for me and often I’m not wrong, a ‘lame’ or ‘yikes’ haiku.
I guess I should try to learn more, read more from Basho who lured me into the art in 2005 when I found a collection of his haiku, honestly the first I ever read having been schooled in continental literature, at the Enoch Pratt Library main library in Baltimore. Perhaps, I should reflect more on how his haiku often turn out as a meditation like in the famous ‘old pond’ where the frog’s splash fractures the silence to remind him that in the stillness of a pond, there is sound, there is life that brings him back from the ether to the frog.
But not wanting to lose my haiku-writing cells, I’m still writing with the prompts privately and continuing with my haibun memoir, some of which or excerpts of which I’ll post here once in a while.
…its burdens (excerpt from a haibun diary)
…it is the rhythm that’s constant it seems and not the stillness—the way the wind pulls and withdraws and the way the leaves sway and retract or how the clouds gather into masses and then dissipate into air or is it merely the eye that misses the jagged movements and edges and catches merely that moment when the rhythm shows and reassures us, as in the constancy of flowers even as petals begin to brown and curl in the edges and fall, because all we recall is their being there as in moments we have flowed into still flow into like on our early morning walks when
shifting tides–
the river unloads burdens
for us to decode
…and its burdens turn out to be what others fail to see as in the serene moments we share when as yet it is unruffled
(Excerpt from a haibun diary , a work-in-progress)
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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