flaring petals (haiga link)
I can’t figure out how to add the visual (media) here, and so, please click on the link to view the haiga. Sorry!
flaring petals
breath within breath
their dawn
if i could linger (my tanka at LYNX June 2012)
if I could linger
under trees, i would implant
myself to bar
the wind from luring petals
to their deathly dance
LYNX XXVII: June 2, 2012
cherry blossoms at Sakura Park, Upper West side, New York
what doesn’t end? (reflections out of a haiku prompt)
damselflies
and mourning doves
the tireless sweetness
of chickadees
the languorous dusk
what doesn’t end?
even the sun ends
not of itself but on us
but where else
do meanings lie
but on the shades
that shrink or end
or burst open with our eyes
roses laugh
leaving imprints on whorls
their petals take shape
swallows glance
and in swiftness
understand what longings
we hide
our dawns to waxwings
mere duplicates
of first dawns
we cannot know
midday points to zeniths
we alter in each turn
our mindlessness take
somethings to a fly
we end too soon it savors
until in willingness
though yet undone
its life ends
even as it captures
with million eyes
the universe the way
we cannot
because we resist
somethings do end
as simply as each day
reflections out of a haiku prompt on ‘insects’ in the soon-to-come out August issue of Sketchbook
…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)
my moon haiku on NaHaiWriMo (to mark the lunar eclipse)
full moon in Sechelt, BC
1.
rising moon—
the door latch opens for you
to gather me in
2.
pushing through the pines
Rose Moon
breaches my darkness
3.
waning moon—
breeze rearranges the petals
tighter together
the coming of summer (Shiki Kukai May 2011)
the coming of summer–
all the petals
i brushed off my hair
voted haiku, Shiki Kukai May 2011, kigo: coming of summer
also posted at NaHaiWriMo
red (for One Shoot Sunday)
photo prompt by Walter Parada
the truth about red:
my heart is like a man’s
although it flickers not throbs
as the Sun I am absent at the zenith
but in living things i lend my flare
my color is red not gold
as Red i seep in or withdraw
i blossom vermillion in camellias, azaleas,
or metamorphose into the rose
when blossoms shed petals,
leaving a litter of brown scraps
i desert the flowers
or blaze in berries, persimmons—
when juiced i spurt red
after coupling with Earth
i, as the Sun, leave it with
fire for smoldering births
find me, Red,
on chipped off terra cotta bricks
a mitt of rust on stray feet
a red organdy dress
to lift the shroud off grieving
i drip red on tubs of basi
shared after evening prayers
flaring on a monsignor’s cheeks
chanting a Te Deum
i pull Red out of my chest
to cloak archbishops
in carmine the color of fresh blood
the blaze of martyrs
who bleed for others
drain their heart out
but locked in self
i dry out a heart turn it black
blood when it dries up
that’s me, a two-faced Diablo
the apparition sneaking in at night
death masquerading as love
a bouquet of red carnations on Fridays
seething trees through bumpy rides
a stone in the moonlight rooting on a mango tree
a branch for a splint on broken bones
a face bruised by kisses
scarlet spears in childhood dreams
your name on my breath
a deep breeze
i, Red, am also the Sun swirling down
on a violent hand
but soften on pink tulle over the fields
coaxing you to reach up to me
scooping you to turn in my arms
switch off your fears
to smoother you with my most tender tinge
i, the Diablo slung in your heart:
you‘re freed
*basi, fermented sugar cane, native wine in the northernmost edge of the Philippine archipelago.
Posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry where I can’t resist the challenge as the other poets and artists who congregate to share their love of art and poetry in this site. Check us out!
look down/not up…(a tanka-ish reflection on cherry blossoms)
look down not up
the cherry blossoms
but petal shreds on grass
no memory of our mornings
the tea cup cools that soon
…disjointed from the brevity of the cherry blossoms. The clouds of pink now but litter on pavements. On twigs, brownish shoots have edged out the blosoms. I haven’t recharged my camera to catch the glory of it. What has come in between that seemed so compelling turns out nothing but worn out routes I can’t stop trudging into mindlessly. Ahhh, this life we live to miss what we should not too soon.
my ‘yikes!’ haiku (from a suite of the first-ever haiku I submitted to THN)
1.
moon rise
on church window,
mom and I holding hands
2.
magnolia petals
in the wind—
the rush at my wedding
3.
shredded blooms
on my hair—
writing on my journal
4.
spring rain—
the taste of salt spray
the first time
5.
first spring walk—
a clump of drooping snowdrops
black patch smaller
6.
against the haze
a hedge of briar roses—
my unfinished poem
These and the rest in the suite of ten haiku, of course, came back declined. You might want to let me know why, first, and then, I’ll write a self-critique.
first kiss (playing with images on haiku-like lines for One Shoot Sunday )
over head–
a robin trills, i race
the uptown train
to meet you
on elm street
my feet on clouds–
wind swept petals
i skid on my soles
under a lavender bush
such fragrance–
so like yours
still running
now through rain drops
i slip but land on begonia quilt–
i pick three dandelions
i race on
a pair of crows–
from juniper tops cawing a duet
swoops in on a picnic spread
i turn away
afternoon rain
coming harder i skid under a shade
of cherry blossoms
my heart thrums faster
singling on a wall
under weeping crab apple blooms–
the rain their tears and mine
am i crying?
my watch
eats up minutes–
you will be gone
i am sobbing
the rain stops–
sunlight ripples through the sky
falls on a lilac hedge i race on
to meet you
against a wall
the sun bursts on your smile
you sprint to meet me
under a rain-washed sky
eyes dripping
sweetened rain, petals on our lips
wet, soft, warm
we kiss our first
on the heart-shaped sky
we sign our names,
say our vows
on three dandelions
Phot by Katherine Forbes
Posted for One Shoot Sunday from a photo by Katherine Forbes. Join other poets at One Stop Poetry blog who write verses for love, read those of others, leave a word of encouragement and/or insight with the same love and respect. Post your piece on your blog and sign up in the Mr. Linky list
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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