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
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.
the bride (for One Shoot Sunday)
dawn
settles on her barefeet
a starling craving to
flex wings
the ground quivers
from her tender steps unease
spreads
among wet stones
she wiggles
off her restless sighs
to undo her veil of wind
her hair loosens
strands of singing
rise over the heartbeat
of sparrows
she becomes a pair of wings
shirred skirt
the feathers she preens
to a sheen that stuns
a hesitant sun
the day flexes
on her limbs a thrumming
wakens the tender
lilies she stalked in her dreams
she steps into
her gaping red shoes
the brooding crows
scatter
a ruckus spreads
among the dandelions
the seagulls catch in fevered
pitch
she walks
parting the congregation
in blindness deaf
to the grumbling
over the rise
among the pines she raises
her arms an arc
to the sky
a swallow
skimming the meadow
where heads limp in the breeze
but balloons from her wedding
the gulls shriek
it pierces her flight
she careens
down the hill snags
a thread of her dream
first a thump
of the wearied balloon
that pumped her wings
next her toes
like a bird poised to fly
in a fall
(c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
Photo prompt by Lauren Randolph
For One Shoot Sunday at One Shot Poetry, winner of the 2011 Shorty Award for the Arts. Come check us out and share your art and poetry–it’s what we do her, share and nurture each other.
spring panic
spring panic–
ruckus of the sparrows
over petals shedding
spring–
his promise in a box
i open too late
I better stop here or I start writing ‘yikes-haiku’! Panic over the ticking clock is what’s wrong with me. Nothing comes to mind. I need to wind down now for an early start to be at the Buddhist temple in Richmond tomorrow for a ginko walk with members of the Vancouver Haiku Group–us!
Deserter (One Shot Wednesday)
Spine-sagged figures trudge where mottled hill
smacks a smoky sky. A breeze lifts arms but weighs down on phantom weights, crosses the shape of forebodings.
I plead for coddling. But gray huddle bursts–on command
of the winged kingpin–derisive of my intrusion,
message on their repulsive eyes. I recoil
faceless among faces, creep away.
Had I feathers not sticks to heave survival arms
uphill in desert cubicles where suns sketch moons
over trees, I would fly away. Had I beaks not lips to warble jeweled clips not statements of commitments
without weight or facets I could not hold out to
to some light or undecided darkness,
I would sing. Hence, spirit-less
I creep up a clump of cypresses–those grave
sentinels that now stir in the wind, a warning. Am I
perhaps who has given up fighting, scrambling to my end
where martinet on my deserter’s trail awaits? Hinted stars witness my trembling, and then my calming—
when over my head twitters from sparrows roosting
drip as notes, congealing as affirmation of peace
my endless steps into the day, how it winds
to fill and drain then draw up tweets I drop like theirs,
balancing my spirit on a concrete sky.
NOTE: Editing refuses to read my line breaks on line #2 stanza 1, break on down on/phantom weights; line #3 stanza 2, break on warble/jeweled; line #4 stanza 3, break on stars/witness
Edited from original published in “Poets Against War”, March 2008
posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry blog. Join other poets and link up your poem wth Mr. Linky in the site.
the kiss (for One Shoot Sunday)
*composed from a picture prompt, a photo by Lisa Michelle Arhonditis, at One Stop Poetry blog’s One Shoot Sunday
among the willows we waited
for the wind to calm down—
the wind sometimes listens
to our whispers
and steals from ripples of the lake
our secret sighs
on our way back
a ruckus of the sparrows
in the lilac bush
sunk into the twilight—
we waited for the darkness
to open up for the moon
the night slipped in
more silken than cherry blossoms
more fragile than a wing tip
as innocent as a star–
then your kiss birthed a galaxy
swirling us to infinity
I posted this poem for One Shoot Sunday at the One Stop Poetry blog.
Join us – throw in your verses. Here are the rules (taken directly off their blog):
1. Write a poetic piece & post it on your blog
2. Then let us know about your post. Link back to One Shot
3. Sign up in the Mr Linky list, linking directly to your post, AFTER you’ve posted it.
4. Go visit others who have signed up! Offer support & encouragement. Share your love of words and insight respectfully. Please try to visit as many participating poets as you can. We all could use and appreciate kind feedback.
leaves crackling (tribute to Mama)
leaves crackling–
in her grave tiny hands sweep
leavings of sparrows
September twilight–for Peggy
September twilight–
waiting for sparrows
to share a song
for Peggy Willis Lyles on her flight to infinity. . . Thank you Peggy!
Last lines to treasure:
Subject: submissionto turtlerock@att.net
Hi Peggy,
I’ts been a long drought of haiku for me. But here I am, giving it a try again.
Alegria
On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 10:07 AM, <turtlerock@att.net> wrote:
Dear Alegria,
I’m in the hospital. Would you please send these again in about 3 weeks when I expect to be fine?
Thanks,
Peggy
Alegria Imperial to turtlerock
Show details Jul 11
Oh nooo! I hope you’ll be fine and I do wish you well. I’m sending you Aureola cascade thoughts flowing into a pool. May the quiet ripples heal you.
I’ll re-submit my haiku in Aug. or early Sept.
Take care.
Alegria
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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