dust once, a haibun
Oh, the map I use? It’s uncharted and unnamed. It’s wild woods and volcanic rocks. There are lakes and rice field puddles but also marsh and hot spring pools, smoky from the depths. Unless ‘I find a flower I can name’, it’s hard even for me to find my way back. Birds sing and talk but mostly unseen except the owl. Sometimes, he reveals their name. I’ve taken notes but forget about them the moment I walk away. My map always seems new, uncharted and unnamed. I know it’s not good but maybe the owl will help someday somehow.
dust once…
somehow a chicken knows
some stones
Lakeview International Journal of Literature and the Arts August 2013
(a kind of short autobiography)
the wait (TCR issue 51 for One Shot Wednesday)
on the window
the bird seed beveled
a choppy morning
where the soughing wind
mimics whispers
snagged among caricature
of trees
ruined by the rain
shredded under steps
leaves trapped in gutters—
thoughts flung on
rain puddles where the rain
drops as rings blurring
the sky
in the lilac bush
the ruckus of the sparrows
sinks into the sunset
in the brambles a spider web sags—
we wait for the darkness
to open up for the moon
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
Published at The Cortland Review Issue 51 May 2011
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry. Check out this site wher poets share their love for their art and nurture each other.
dawn and qarrtsiluni
dawn–
the Sierra Madres peaks
burst in pink
in the bamboo grove
shadows shed off the night–
dawn
glinting–
puddles in rice fields
at dawn
each step
on rice paddies
dawn unfurls
their blush regained–
frangipanis at dawn
It’s a glorious sight from the balcony of Angeles Estates where I stay when I used to travel north from Manila, and on the highways in Nueva Ecija, the Philippines’ central plains. Dawn has always been my time of day though not as much when I moved to this other side of the hemisphere. On rare mornings though, I catch dawn on tips of conifers–the same pink purple though often with hints of red as I’ve waken to as a child.
Why am I talking of dawn today? Because I feel a new morning just risen, figuratively, with the publication of my three tanka in three languages, English, Spanish and Iluko on http://qarrtsiluni.com (click on my blogroll, too). It comes with a podcast of my reading. You may wish to check it out.