another throwback post…a tanka ‘duet’ at LYNX journal
as the moon
transforms in sunlight
we shift roles
you into a clown, i
a hummingbird
in my palm
the fortune teller
traces lines
one slides off my destiny
away from yours
LYNX XXVII:I February 2012
a throwback post…3 tanka at GUSTS Winter 2013
should I
consider my missteps
to understand…
how the Milky Way ended
with me in this pond?
like layers
of sunlight among weeds
our words
thrive on silence…until gushing
we burst into flowers
the twisted twig
of an old cedar leans
Westward
as if the wind senses
my every longing
GUSTS Fall/Winter 2013 (Tanka Canada)
‘sunlight on the other side’ (a haiga)
Silk Bridge, Bennington, VT
sunlight on the other side
somehow louder
ai, haiku/esa, photo
as the moon/in my palm (2 tanka at LYNX)
1.
as the moon
transforms in sunlight
we shift roles
you into a clown, i
a hummingbird
2.
in my palm
the fortune teller
traces lines
one slides off my destiny
away from yours
LYNX XXVII:I February 2012
first smile (haiga8 for Rick Daddario’s challenge at19 Planets Art Blog)
haiga 8 composed on Microsoft Publisher with my sister's first baby picture at 5 mos old
first smile nothing else
I remember that early morning light, which illumines the bedroom. It could have poured in through a window facing east where deep dark leaves of a star apple tree soaked most of it, leaving a young mango sprout pale in its struggle to grow. Or perhaps it was just uncared for. And why do I now blame the more luxuriant star apple? No one could pay much attention to the mango seedling then, since the birth of my sister and only sibling.
It could have been a Saturday morning. My mother could have been home that late and didn’t leave for school across the stream a block away, a post-deduction I’m making from the angle of the light. If it were a weekend, I must have been sleeping late. It couldn’t but be a Saturday or this picture wouldn’t have been taken by an uncle who also taught at the parish school. So why am I making a fuss this late?
Because I wish I could relate a more credible story as to how that first smile was caught. I remember my sister more as fretful. She cried when she felt sleepy or couldn’t sleep. She cried when she woke up and felt hot. When I carried her, I could not hold her facing me for long; I would have to make her face outward with one arm supporting her butt as in a seat, her legs dangling, and my other arm, bracing her close to me so she would not fall forward. She hardly smiled. She seemed to size up people as if already making opinions as they talked though she still couldn’t except to say, ‘Mama’. Which is why this smile for me sparkles as a gem.
I know that hand carved wooden bed. On it, I nuzzled on my mother’s side under a crook of her arm as deep as my memory dips. I watched my sister suckled from my mother’s breast, perhaps like I did, on this bed. I remember bumping my head on the headboard against carvings of huge blooms, hearts of gardenias in a swirl of leaves leaning away as if blown by their redolence. Lying on it felt like easing into silken strands, the hand woven rattan strips, which stretched and retracted with each un-recalled movement in dreams. I know that slightly creased sheet, too, which is actually a native heavy woven cotton blanket I had dived into as a child myself. It must have been really a Saturday morning because I see no pillows, which my grandmother would have gathered to put out under the sun to disinfect and deodorize.
The story I recall of this morning has to do with impulses. An uncle who lived on the other corner of our street, apparently just happened to drop by with his camera. He just suddenly wanted to take a picture of my 5-month old sister. My sister just then was learning to turn on her side. That morning, she happened to do a full turn to lie on her belly. She just happened to smile. Or maybe I was there to clown around when my uncle clicked his Kodak Field camera. But the truth is, I remember nothing else but this first smile.
Fifty four years gape between that morning and me today. I am now an elderly woman hankering for details I missed. But then again because I have none except this moment caught, I can spin webs around it to catch any morning light, and perhaps one like that Saturday morning.
haiku on the beach, tides, the sea (at NaHaiWriMo)
the sea in Ilocos Norte, the northermost province of the 7,100 islands of the Philippine archipelago, a scene I so miss. Photo by Raymond Ramos, a cousin in the 3rd degree,
a.
when shifting tides
shift the codes–
sunset
b.
secrets
digging into sand dunes–
a pale sunlight
c.
squalling seagulls–
scanning empty shorelines
for chances we’ve lost
d.
Cape Bojeador*–
we measure heights of billows
against our skies
*built by the Spaniards a lighthouse in Cape Bojeador in the northernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago juts out with a promontory as if into the sea where one may view giant waves crashing against each other and not only on high cliffs but mid-sea. On closer look at the waters, you may see a difference of hue—this is the point where the Pacific Ocean meets the China Sea, a truly stunning sight.
absolved (for One Shot Wednesday)
swallows burst into our crude mornings
their flight staggering on false winds
we gaze aghast
this fractured air birthed on false moonlight
unpredicted
our beggar voice fades into whimpers
fluttering splintered among fallen blossoms
the unabashed camellias bared
a scandal unmasked by a rude sunlight
our bleeding unabated
we slip into the brambles our sobs drowning
in the chatter of winds the river grumbles
about our tears
a sorrow tarnished by ageing stars
sputtering at dawn
a mourning heron ceases lending its grief
we recover our lips on pin drops of sky
the brambles open up for the wind
a chorus of ripples washes our bleeding
steps curl on our tears we rise
white among rhodoras
absolved
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, winner of the 2011 Shorty Award for the Arts, the inimitable gathering place of poets and artists where they share their love for their art while nurturing each other. Come join us!
secrets #2 for day 21 of NaHaiWriMo
secrets—
burrowing in sand dunes
a pale sunlight
My haiku for days 19,20 and #1 for 21 are posted in the NaHaiWriMo facebook site.
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
sunlight
1.
sunlight swarms even on cesspools
2.
along some rivers only the pale sunlight
3.
after the sunlight fireflies
4.
tracking down a narrowed creak sunlight
5.
smiling in the sunlight she
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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